A highly divisive figure, Gaddafi dominated Libya's politics for four decades and was the subject of a pervasive cult of personality. He was decorated with various awards and praised for his anti-imperialist stance, support for Arab, and then African, unity and for significant improvements that his government brought to the Libyan people's quality of life. Conversely, Islamic fundamentalists strongly opposed his social and economic reforms, and he was posthumously accused of sexual abuse. He was condemned by many as a dictator whose authoritarian administration violated human rights and financed global terrorism.

Early life

Childhood: 1942/1943–1950

Muammar Mohammed Abu Minyar Gaddafi[12] was born in a tent,[13] near Qasr Abu Hadi, a rural area outside the town of Sirte in the deserts of Tripolitania, western Libya.[14] His family came from a small, relatively uninfluential tribal group called the Qadhadhfa,[15] who were Arabized Berber in heritage.[16] His mother was named Aisha (died 1978), and his father, Mohammad Abdul Salam bin Hamed bin Mohammad, was known as Abu Meniar (died 1985); the latter earned a meagre subsistence as a goat and camel herder.[15] Nomadic Bedouins were illiterate and kept no birth records.[17] As such, Gaddafi's date of birth is not known with certainty, and sources have set it in 1942 or in the spring of 1943,[17] although his biographers David Blundy and Andrew Lycett noted that it could have been pre-1940.[18] His parents' only surviving son, he had three older sisters.[17] Gaddafi's upbringing in Bedouin culture influenced his personal tastes for the rest of his life; he preferred the desert over the city and would retreat there to meditate.[19]

From childhood, Gaddafi was aware of the involvement of European colonialists in Libya; his nation was occupied by Italy, and during the North African Campaign of World War II it witnessed conflict between Italian and British troops.[20] According to later claims, Gaddafi's paternal grandfather, Abdessalam Bouminyar, was killed by the Italian Army during the Italian invasion of 1911.[21] At World War II's end in 1945, Libya was occupied by British and French forces. Although Britain and France intended on dividing the nation between their empires, the General Assembly of the United Nations (UN) declared that the country be granted political independence.[22] In 1951, the UN created the United Kingdom of Libya, a federal state under the leadership of a pro-Western monarch, Idris, who banned political parties and centralized power in his monarchy.[22]

Education and political activism: 1950–1963

Gaddafi's earliest education was of a religious nature, imparted by a local Islamic teacher.[23] Subsequently, moving to nearby Sirte to attend elementary school, he progressed through six grades in four years.[24] Education in Libya was not free, but his father thought it would greatly benefit his son despite the financial strain. During the week Gaddafi slept in a mosque, and at weekends walked 20 miles to visit his parents.[24] At school, Gaddafi was bullied for being a Bedouin, but was proud of his identity and encouraged pride in other Bedouin children.[24] Aside from that, he was the oldest boy in his class.[13] From Sirte, he and his family moved to the market town of Sabha in Fezzan, south-central Libya, where his father worked as a caretaker for a tribal leader while Muammar attended secondary school, something neither parent had done.[25] Gaddafi was popular at this school; some friends made there received significant jobs in his later administration, most notably his best friend Abdul Salam Jalloud.[26]

Gaddafi organized demonstrations and distributed posters criticizing the monarchy.[32] In October 1961, he led a demonstration protesting against Syria's secession from the United Arab Republic, and raised funds to send cables of support to Nasser. Twenty students were arrested as a result of the disorder. Gaddafi and his companions also broke windows in a local hotel that was accused of serving alcohol. To punish Gaddafi, the authorities expelled him and his family from Sabha.[33][34] Gaddafi moved to Misrata, there attending Misrata Secondary School.[35] Maintaining his interest in Arab nationalist activism, he refused to join any of the banned political parties active in the city—including the Arab Nationalist Movement, the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, and the Muslim Brotherhood—claiming that he rejected factionalism.[36] He read voraciously on the subjects of Nasser and the French Revolution of 1789, as well as the works of Syrian political theorist Michel Aflaq and biographies of Abraham Lincoln, Sun Yat-sen, and Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.[36]

Military training: 1963–1966

Gaddafi briefly studied History at the University of Libya in Benghazi, before dropping out to join the military.[37] Despite his police record, in 1963 he began training at the Royal Military Academy, Benghazi, alongside several like-minded friends from Misrata. The armed forces offered the only opportunity for upward social mobility for underprivileged Libyans, and Gaddafi recognized it as a potential instrument of political change.[38] Under Idris, Libya's armed forces were trained by the British military; this angered Gaddafi, who viewed the British as imperialists, and accordingly he refused to learn English and was rude to the British officers, ultimately failing his exams.[39] British trainers reported him for insubordination and abusive behaviour, stating their suspicion that he was involved in the assassination of the military academy's commander in 1963. Such reports were ignored and Gaddafi quickly progressed through the course.[40]

With a group of loyal cadres, in 1964 Gaddafi founded the Central Committee of the Free Officers Movement, a revolutionary group named after Nasser's Egyptian predecessor. Led by Gaddafi, they met clandestinely and were organized into a clandestine cell system, offering their salaries into a single fund.[41] Gaddafi travelled around Libya gathering intelligence and developing connections with sympathizers, but the government's intelligence services ignored him, considering him little threat.[42] Graduating in August 1965,[43] Gaddafi became a communications officer in the army's signal corps.[43]

In April 1966, he was assigned to the United Kingdom for further training; over 9 months he underwent an English-language course at Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, an Army Air Corps signal instructors course in Bovington Camp, Dorset, and an infantry signal instructors course at Hythe, Kent.[44] Despite later rumours to the contrary, he did not attend the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.[42] The Bovington signal course's director reported that Gaddafi successfully overcame problems learning English, displaying a firm command of voice procedure. Noting that Gaddafi's favourite hobbies were reading and playing football, he thought him an "amusing officer, always cheerful, hard-working, and conscientious."[45] Gaddafi disliked England, claiming British Army officers racially insulted him and finding it difficult adjusting to the country's culture; asserting his Arab identity in London, he walked around Piccadilly wearing traditional Libyan robes.[46] He later related that while he travelled to England believing it more advanced than Libya, he returned home "more confident and proud of our values, ideals and social character."[46]

Libyan Arab Republic

Coup d'etat: 1969

"People of Libya! In response to your own will, fulfilling your most heartfelt wishes, answering your most incessant demands for change and regeneration, and your longing to strive towards these ends: listening to your incitement to rebel, your armed forces have undertaken the overthrow of the corrupt regime, the stench of which has sickened and horrified us all. at a single blow our gallant army has toppled these idols and has destroyed their images. By a single stroke it has lightened the long dark night in which the Turkish domination was followed first by Italian rule, then by this reactionary and decadent regime which was no more than a hotbed of extortion, faction, treachery and treason."

Idris' government was increasingly unpopular by the latter 1960s; it had exacerbated Libya's traditional regional and tribal divisions by centralising the country's federal system in order to take advantage of the country's oil wealth,[48] while corruption and entrenched systems of patronage were widespread throughout the oil industry.[49] Arab nationalism was increasingly popular, and protests flared up following Egypt's 1967 defeat in the Six-Day War with Israel; allied to the Western powers, Idris' administration was seen as pro-Israeli.[50] Anti-Western riots broke out in Tripoli and Benghazi, while Libyan workers shut down oil terminals in solidarity with Egypt.[50] By 1969, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency was expecting segments of Libya's armed forces to launch a coup. Although claims have been made that they knew of Gaddafi's Free Officers Movement, they have since claimed ignorance, stating that they were monitoring Abdul Aziz Shalhi's Black Boots revolutionary group.[51]

In mid-1969, Idris travelled abroad to spend the summer in Turkey and Greece. Gaddafi's Free Officers recognized this as their chance to overthrow the monarchy, initiating "Operation Jerusalem".[52] On 1 September, they occupied airports, police depots, radio stations and government offices in Tripoli and Benghazi. Gaddafi took control of the Berka barracks in Benghazi, while Omar Meheisha occupied Tripoli barracks and Jalloud seized the city's anti-aircraft batteries. Khweldi Hameidi was sent to arrest crown prince Sayyid Hasan ar-Rida al-Mahdi as-Sanussi, and force him to relinquish his claim to the throne.[53] They met no serious resistance, and wielded little violence against the monarchists.[54]

Once Gaddafi removed the monarchical government, he announced the foundation of the Libyan Arab Republic.[55] Addressing the populace by radio, he proclaimed an end to the "reactionary and corrupt" regime, "the stench of which has sickened and horrified us all."[56] Due to the coup's bloodless nature, it was initially labelled the "White Revolution", although was later renamed the "One September Revolution" after the date on which it occurred.[57] Gaddafi insisted that the Free Officers' coup represented a revolution, marking the start of widespread change in the socio-economic and political nature of Libya.[58] He proclaimed that the revolution meant "freedom, socialism, and unity", and over the coming years implemented measures to achieve this.[59]

Consolidating leadership: 1969–1973

The 12 member central committee of the Free Officers proclaimed themselves the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC), the government of the new republic.[60] Lieutenant Gaddafi became RCC Chairman, and therefore the de facto head of state, also appointing himself to the rank of colonel and becoming commander-in-chief of the armed forces.[61] Jalloud became Prime Minister,[62] while a civilian Council of Ministers headed by Sulaiman Maghribi was founded to implement RCC policy.[63] Libya's administrative capital was moved from al-Beida to Tripoli.[64]

Flag of Libya within Federation of Arab Republics (1972 – 1977)

Although theoretically a collegial body operating through consensus building, Gaddafi dominated the RCC,[57] although some of the others attempted to constrain what they saw as his excesses.[65] Gaddafi remained the government's public face, with the identities of the other RCC members only being publicly revealed on 10 January 1970.[66] All young men from (typically rural) working and middle-class backgrounds, none had university degrees; in this way they were distinct from the wealthy, highly educated conservatives who previously governed the country.[67]

The coup completed, the RCC proceeded with their intentions of consolidating the revolutionary government and modernizing the country.[57] They purged monarchists and members of Idris' Senussi clan from Libya's political world and armed forces; Gaddafi believed this elite were opposed to the will of the Libyan people and had to be expunged.[68] "People's Courts" were founded to try various monarchist politicians and journalists, many of whom were imprisoned, although none executed. Idris was sentenced to execution in absentia.[69]

In May 1970, the Revolutionary Intellectuals Seminar was held to bring intellectuals in line with the revolution,[70] while that year's Legislative Review and Amendment united secular and religious law codes, introducing sharia into the legal system.[71]Ruling by decree, the RCC maintained the monarchy's ban on political parties, in May 1970 banned trade unions, and in 1972 outlawed workers' strikes and suspended newspapers.[72] In September 1971, Gaddafi resigned, claiming to be dissatisfied with the pace of reform, but returned to his position within a month.[62] In February 1973, he resigned again, once more returning the following month.[73]

Economic and social reform

Gaddafi at an Arab summit in Libya in 1969, shortly after the September Revolution that toppled King Idris I. Gaddafi sits in military uniform in the middle, surrounded by Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser (left) and Syrian President Nureddin al-Atassi (right).

The RCC's early economic policy has been characterized as being state capitalist in orientation.[74] A number of schemes were established to aid entrepreneurs and develop a Libyan bourgeoisie.[75] Seeking to expand the cultivatable acreage in Libya, in September 1969 the government launched a "Green Revolution" to raise agricultural productivity so that Libya could rely less on imported food.[76] All land that had either been expropriated from Italian settlers or which was not in use was expropriated and redistributed.[77] Irrigation systems were established along the northern coastline and around various inland oases.[78] Production costs often outstripped the value of the produce and thus Libyan agricultural production remained in deficit, relying heavily on state subsidies.[79]

With crude oil as the country's primary export, Gaddafi sought to improve Libya's oil sector.[80] In October 1969, he proclaimed the current trade terms unfair, benefiting foreign corporations more than the Libyan state, and by threatening to reduce production, in December Jalloud successfully increased the price of Libyan oil.[81] In 1970, other OPEC states followed suit, leading to a global increase in the price of crude oil.[80] The RCC followed with the Tripoli Agreement, in which they secured income tax, back-payments and better pricing from the oil corporations; these measures brought Libya an estimated $1 billion in additional revenues in its first year.[82]

Increasing state control over the oil sector, the RCC began a program of nationalization, starting with the expropriation of British Petroleum's share of the British Petroleum-N.B. Hunt Sahir Field in December 1971.[83] In September 1973, it was announced that all foreign oil producers active in Libya were to see 51% of their operation nationalized. For Gaddafi, this was an important step towards socialism.[84] It proved an economic success; while gross domestic product had been $3.8 billion in 1969, it had risen to $13.7 billion in 1974, and $24.5 billion in 1979.[85] In turn, the Libyans' standard of life greatly improved over the first decade of Gaddafi's administration, and by 1979 the average per-capita income was at $8,170, up from $40 in 1951; this was above the average of many industrialized countries like Italy and the U.K.[85]

The RCC implemented measures for social reform, adopting sharia as a basis.[86] The consumption of alcohol was banned, night clubs and Christian churches were shut down, traditional Libyan dress was encouraged, and Arabic was decreed as the only language permitted in official communications and on road signs.[87] The RCC doubled the minimum wage, introduced statutory price controls, and implemented compulsory rent reductions of between 30 and 40%.[88] Gaddafi also wanted to combat the strict social restrictions that had been imposed on women by the previous regime, establishing the Revolutionary Women's Formation to encourage reform.[89] In 1970, a law was introduced affirming equality of the sexes and insisting on wage parity.[90] In 1971, Gaddafi sponsored the creation of a Libyan General Women's Federation.[91] In 1972, a law was passed criminalizing the marriage of any females under the age of sixteen and ensuring that a woman's consent was a necessary prerequisite for a marriage.[90] Gaddafi's regime opened up a wide range of educational and employment opportunities for women, although these primarily benefited a minority in the urban middle-classes.[90]

From 1969 to 1973, it used oil money to fund social welfare programs, which led to house-building projects and improved healthcare and education.[92] House building became a major social priority, designed to eliminate homelessness and to replace the shanty towns created by Libya's growing urbanization.[88] The health sector was also expanded; by 1978, Libya had 50% more hospitals than it had in 1968, while the number of doctors had grown from 700 to over 3000 in that decade.[93]Malaria was eradicated, and trachoma and tuberculosis greatly curtailed.[93] Compulsory education was expanded from 6 to 9 years, while adult literacy programs and free university education were introduced.[94]Beida University was founded, while Tripoli University and Benghazi University were expanded.[94] In doing so the government helped to integrate the poorer strata of Libyan society into the education system.[95] Through these measures, the RCC greatly expanded the public sector, providing employment for thousands.[92] These early social programs proved popular within Libya.[96] This popularity was partly due to Gaddafi's personal charisma, youth and underdog status as a Bedouin, as well as his rhetoric emphasizing his role as the successor to the anti-Italian fighter Omar Mukhtar.[97]

To combat the country's strong regional and tribal divisions, the RCC promoted the idea of a unified pan-Libyan identity.[98] In doing so, they tried discrediting tribal leaders as agents of the old regime, and in August 1971 a Sabha military court tried many of them for counter-revolutionary activity.[98] Long-standing administrative boundaries were re-drawn, crossing tribal boundaries, while pro-revolutionary modernisers replaced traditional leaders, but the communities they served often rejected them.[99] Realizing the failures of the modernizers, Gaddafi created the Arab Socialist Union (ASU) in June 1971, a mass mobilization vanguard party of which he was president.[100] The ASU recognized the RCC as its "Supreme Leading Authority", and was designed to further revolutionary enthusiasm throughout the country.[101] It remained heavily bureaucratic and failed to mobilize mass support in the way Gaddafi had envisioned.[102]

Foreign relations

Gaddafi (left) with Egyptian President Nasser in 1969. Nasser privately described Gaddafi as "a nice boy, but terribly naïve".[103]

The influence of Nasser's Arab nationalism over the RCC was immediately apparent.[104] The administration was instantly recognized by the neighbouring Arab nationalist regimes in Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Sudan,[105] with Egypt sending experts to aid the inexperienced RCC.[106] Gaddafi propounded Pan-Arab ideas, proclaiming the need for a single Arab state stretching across North Africa and the Middle East.[107] In December 1969, Libya signed the Tripoli Charter alongside Egypt and Sudan. This established the Arab Revolutionary Front, a pan-national union designed as a first step towards the eventual political unification of the three nations.[108] In 1970 Syria declared its intention to join.[109]

Nasser died unexpectedly in November 1970, with Gaddafi playing a prominent role at his funeral.[110] Nasser was succeeded by Anwar Sadat, who suggested that rather than creating a unified state, the Arab states should create a political federation, implemented in April 1971; in doing so, Egypt, Syria and Sudan received large grants of Libyan oil money.[111] In February 1972, Gaddafi and Sadat signed an unofficial charter of merger, but it was never implemented because relations broke down the following year. Sadat became increasingly wary of Libya's radical direction, and the September 1973 deadline for implementing the Federation passed by with no action taken.[112]

After the 1969 coup, representatives of the Four Powers—France, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Soviet Union—were called to meet RCC representatives.[113] The U.K. and the U.S. quickly extended diplomatic recognition, hoping to secure the position of their military bases in Libya and fearing further instability. Hoping to ingratiate themselves with Gaddafi, in 1970 the U.S. informed him of at least one planned counter-coup.[114] Such attempts to form a working relationship with the RCC failed; Gaddafi was determined to reassert national sovereignty and expunge what he described as foreign colonial and imperialist influences. His administration insisted that the U.S. and the U.K. remove their military bases from Libya, with Gaddafi proclaiming that "the armed forces which rose to express the people's revolution [will not] tolerate living in their shacks while the bases of imperialism exist in Libyan territory." The British left in March and the Americans in June 1970.[115]

Moving to reduce Italian influence, in October 1970 all Italian-owned assets were expropriated and the 12,000-strong Italian community was expelled from Libya alongside the smaller community of Libyan Jews. The day became a national holiday known as "Vengeance Day".[116] Italy complained that this was in contravention of the 1956 Italo-Libyan Treaty, although no U.N. sanctions were forthcoming.[117] Aiming to reduce NATO power in the Mediterranean, in 1971 Libya requested that Malta cease allowing NATO to use its land for a military base, in turn offering Malta foreign aid. Compromising, Malta's government continued allowing NATO to use the island, but only on the condition that NATO would not use it for launching attacks on Arab territory.[118] Over the coming decade, Gaddafi's government developed stronger political and economic links with Dom Mintoff's Maltese administration, and under Libya's urging Malta did not renew the UK's airbases on the island in 1980.[119] Orchestrating a military build-up, the RCC began purchasing weapons from France and the Soviet Union.[120] The commercial relationship with the latter led to an increasingly strained relationship with the U.S., which was then engaged in the Cold War with the Soviets.[121]

A 1972 anti-Gaddafist British newsreel including an interview with Gaddafi about his support for foreign militants

Gaddafi was especially critical of the U.S. due to its support of Israel, and supported the Palestinians in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, viewing the 1948 creation of the State of Israel as a Western colonial occupation which was forced upon the Arab world.[122] He believed that Palestinian violence against Israeli and Western targets was the justified response of an oppressed people who were fighting against the colonization of their homeland.[123] Calling on the Arab states to wage "continuous war" against Israel, in 1970 he initiated a Jihad Fund to finance anti-Israeli militants.[124] In June 1972 Gaddafi created the First Nasserite Volunteers Centre to train anti-Israeli guerrillas.[125]

The "Popular Revolution": 1973–1977

On 16 April 1973, Gaddafi proclaimed the start of a "Popular Revolution" in a speech at Zuwarah.[133] He initiated this with a 5-point plan, the first point of which dissolved all existing laws, to be replaced by revolutionary enactments. The second point proclaimed that all opponents of the revolution had to be removed, while the third initiated an administrative revolution that Gaddafi proclaimed would remove all traces of bureaucracy and the bourgeoisie. The fourth point announced that the population must form People's Committees and be armed to defend the revolution, while the fifth proclaimed the beginning of a cultural revolution to expunge Libya of "poisonous" foreign influences.[134] He began to lecture on this new phase of the revolution in Libya, Egypt, and France.[135] As a process, it had many similarities with the Cultural Revolution implemented in China.[136]

As part of this Popular Revolution, Gaddafi invited Libya's people to found General People's Committees as conduits for raising political consciousness. Although offering little guidance for how to set up these councils, Gaddafi claimed that they would offer a form of directpolitical participation that was more democratic than a traditional party-based representative system. He hoped that the councils would mobilise the people behind the RCC, erode the power of the traditional leaders and the bureaucracy, and allow for a new legal system chosen by the people.[137] Many such committees were established in schools and colleges, where they were responsible for vetting staff, courses, and textbooks to determine if they were compatible with the country's revolutionary ideology.[136]

The People's Committees led to a high percentage of public involvement in decision making, within the limits permitted by the RCC,[138] but exacerbated tribal divisions.[139] They also served as a surveillance system, aiding the security services in locating individuals with views critical of the RCC, leading to the arrest of Ba'athists, Marxists, and Islamists.[140] Operating in a pyramid structure, the base form of these Committees were local working groups, who sent elected representatives to the district level, and from there to the national level, divided between the General People's Congress and the General People's Committee.[141] Above these remained Gaddafi and the RCC, who remained responsible for all major decisions.[142] In crossing regional and tribal identities, the committee system aided national integration and centralization and tightened Gaddafi's control over the state and administrative apparatus.[143]

Third Universal Theory and The Green Book

In June 1973, Gaddafi created a political ideology as a basis for the Popular Revolution: Third International Theory. This approach regarded both the U.S. and the Soviet Union as imperialist and thus rejected Western capitalism as well as Eastern bloc communism's atheism.[144] In this respect it was similar to the Three Worlds Theory developed by China's political leader Mao Zedong.[145] As part of this theory, Gaddafi praised nationalism as a progressive force and advocated the creation of a pan-Arab state which would lead the Islamic and Third Worlds against imperialism.[146] Gaddafi saw Islam as having a key role in this ideology, calling for an Islamic revival that returned to the origins of the Qur'an, rejecting scholarly interpretations and the Hadith; in doing so, he angered many Libyan clerics.[147] During 1973 and 1974, his government deepened the legal reliance on sharia, for instance by introducing flogging as punishment for those convicted of adultery or homosexual activity.[148]

Gaddafi in the 1970s

Gaddafi summarised Third International Theory in three short volumes published between 1975 and 1979, collectively known as The Green Book. Volume one was devoted to the issue of democracy, outlining the flaws of representative systems in favour of direct, participatory GPCs. The second dealt with Gaddafi's beliefs regarding socialism, while the third explored social issues regarding the family and the tribe. While the first two volumes advocated radical reform, the third adopted a socially conservative stance, proclaiming that while men and women were equal, they were biologically designed for different roles in life.[149] During the years that followed, Gaddafists adopted quotes from The Green Book, such as "Representation is Fraud", as slogans.[150] Meanwhile, in September 1975, Gaddafi implemented further measures to increase popular mobilization, introducing objectives to improve the relationship between the Councils and the ASU.[151]

In 1975, Gaddafi's government declared a state monopoly on foreign trade.[152] Its increasingly radical reforms, coupled with the large amount of oil revenue being spent on foreign causes, generated discontent in Libya,[153] particularly among the country's merchant class.[154] In 1974, Libya saw its first civilian attack on Gaddafi's government when a Benghazi army building was bombed.[155] Much of the opposition centred around the RCC member Omar Mehishi, and with fellow RCC member Bashir Saghir al-Hawaadi he began plotting a coup against Gaddafi. In 1975 their plot was exposed and the pair fled into exile, receiving asylum from Sadat's Egypt.[156] In the aftermath only five RCC members remained, and power was further concentrated in Gaddafi's hands.[157] This led to the RCC's official abolition in March 1977.[151]

In September 1975, Gaddafi purged the army, arresting around 200 senior officers, and in October he founded the clandestine Office for the Security of the Revolution.[158] In April 1976, he called upon his supporters in universities to establish "revolutionary student councils" and drive out "reactionary elements".[159] During that year, anti-Gaddafist student demonstrations broke out at the universities of Tripoli and Benghazi, resulting in clashes with both Gaddafist students and police. The RCC responded with mass arrests, and introduced compulsory national service for young people.[160] In January 1977, two dissenting students and a number of army officers were publicly hanged; Amnesty International condemned it as the first time in Gaddafist Libya that dissenters had been executed for purely political crimes.[161] Dissent also arose from conservative clerics and the Muslim Brotherhood, who accused Gaddafi of moving towards Marxism and criticized his abolition of private property as being against the Islamic sunnah; these forces were then persecuted as anti-revolutionary,[162] while all privately owned Islamic colleges and universities were shut down.[159]

Foreign relations

Following Anwar Sadat's ascension to the Egyptian presidency, Libya's relations with Egypt deteriorated.[163] Over the coming years, the two slipped into a state of cold war.[164] Sadat was perturbed by Gaddafi's unpredictability and insistence that Egypt required a cultural revolution akin to that being carried out in Libya.[163] In February 1973, Israeli forces shot down Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 114, which had strayed from Egyptian airspace into Israeli-held territory during a sandstorm. Gaddafi was infuriated that Egypt had not done more to prevent the incident, and in retaliation planned to destroy the RMS Queen Elizabeth 2, a British ship chartered by American Jews to sail to Haifa for Israel's 25th anniversary. Gaddafi ordered an Egyptian submarine to target the ship, but Sadat cancelled the order, fearing a military escalation.[165]

Gaddafi was later infuriated when Egypt and Syria planned the Yom Kippur War against Israel without consulting him, and was angered when Egypt conceded to peace talks rather than continuing the war.[166] Gaddafi became openly hostile to Egypt's leader, calling for Sadat's overthrow.[167] When Sudanese President Gaafar Nimeiry took Sadat's side, Gaddafi also spoke out against him, encouraging the Sudan People's Liberation Army's attempt to overthrow Nimeiry.[168] Relations with Syria also soured over the events in the Lebanese Civil War. Initially, both Libya and Syria had contributed troops to the Arab League's peacekeeping force, although after the Syrian army attacked the Lebanese National Movement, Gaddafi openly accused Syrian President Hafez al-Assad of "national treason"; he was the only Arab leader to criticize Syria's actions.[169] Focusing his attention elsewhere in Africa, in late 1972 and early 1973, Libya invaded Chad to annex the uranium-rich Aouzou Strip.[170]

Intent on propagating Islam, in 1973 Gaddafi founded the Islamic Call Society, which had opened 132 centres across Africa within a decade.[171] In 1973 he converted Gabonese President Omar Bongo, an action which he repeated three years later with Jean-Bédel Bokassa, president of the Central African Republic.[172] Between 1973 and 1979, Libya provided $500 million in aid to African countries, namely to Zaire and Uganda, and founded joint-venture companies throughout the country to aid trade and development.[173] Gaddafi was also keen on reducing Israeli influence within Africa, using financial incentives to successfully convince eight African states to break off diplomatic relations with Israel in 1973.[174] A strong relationship was also established between Gaddafi's Libya and Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's Pakistani government, with the two countries exchanging nuclear research and military assistance; this relationship ended after Bhutto was deposed by Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq in 1977.[175]

Gaddafi sought to develop closer links in the Maghreb; in January 1974 Libya and Tunisia announced a political union, the Arab Islamic Republic. Although advocated by Gaddafi and Tunisian President Habib Bourguiba, the move was deeply unpopular in Tunisia and it was soon abandoned.[176] Retaliating, Gaddafi sponsored anti-government militants in Tunisia into the 1980s.[177] Turning his attention to Algeria, in 1975 Libya signed the Hassi Messaoud defence allegedly to counter alleged "Moroccan expansionism", also funding the Polisario Front of Western Sahara in its independence struggle against Morocco.[178] Seeking to diversify Libya's economy, Gaddafi's government began purchasing shares in major European corporations like Fiat as well as buying real estate in Malta and Italy, which would become a valuable source of income during the 1980s oil slump.[179]

Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya

Foundation: 1977

On 2 March 1977 the General People's Congress adopted the "Declaration of the Establishment of the People's Authority" at Gaddafi's behest. Dissolving the Libyan Arab Republic, it was replaced by the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya (Arabic: الجماهيرية العربية الليبية الشعبية الاشتراكية‎, al-Jamāhīrīyah al-‘Arabīyah al-Lībīyah ash-Sha‘bīyah al-Ishtirākīyah), a "state of the masses" conceptualized by Gaddafi.[180] A new, all-green banner was adopted as the country's flag.[181] Officially, the Jamahiriya was a direct democracy in which the people ruled themselves through the 187 Basic People's Congresses, where all adult Libyans participated and voted on national decisions. These then sent members to the annual General People's Congress, which was broadcast live on television. In principle, the People's Congresses were Libya's highest authority, with major decisions proposed by government officials or with Gaddafi himself requiring the consent of the People's Congresses.[182] Gaddafi became General Secretary of the GPC, although stepped down from this position in early 1979 and appointed himself "Leader of the Revolution".[183]

Although all political control was officially vested in the People's Congresses, in reality Libya's existing political leadership continued to exercise varying degrees of power and influence.[181] Debate remained limited, and major decisions regarding the economy and defence were avoided or dealt with cursorily; the GPC largely remained "a rubber stamp" for Gaddafi's policies.[184] On rare occasions, the GPC opposed Gaddafi's suggestions, sometimes successfully; notably, when Gaddafi called on primary schools to be abolished, believing that home schooling was healthier for children, the GPC rejected the idea.[184] In other instances, Gaddafi pushed through laws without the GPC's support, such as when he desired to allow women into the armed forces.[185] At other times, he ordered snap elections when it appeared that the GPC would enact laws he opposed.[186] Gaddafi proclaimed that the People's Congresses provided for Libya's every political need, rendering other political organizations unnecessary; all non-authorized groups, including political parties, professional associations, independent trade unions and women's groups, were banned.[187] Despite these restrictions, St. John noted that the Jamhariyah system still "introduced a level of representation and participation hitherto unknown in Libya".[188]

With preceding legal institutions abolished, Gaddafi envisioned the Jamahiriya as following the Qur'an for legal guidance, adopting sharia law; he proclaimed "man-made" laws unnatural and dictatorial, only permitting Allah's law.[189] Within a year he was backtracking, announcing that sharia was inappropriate for the Jamahiriya because it guaranteed the protection of private property, contravening The Green Book's socialism.[190] His emphasis on placing his own work on a par with the Qur'an led conservative clerics to accuse him of shirk, furthering their opposition to his regime.[191] In July 1977, a border war broke out with Egypt, in which the Egyptians defeated Libya despite their technological inferiority. The conflict lasted one week before both sides agreed to sign a peace treaty that was brokered by several Arab states.[192] Both Egypt and Sudan had aligned themselves with the U.S., and this pushed Libya into a strategic—although not political—alignment with the Soviet Union.[193] In recognition of the growing commercial relationship between Libya and the Soviets, Gaddafi was invited to visit Moscow in December 1976; there, he entered talks with Leonid Brezhnev.[194] In August 1977 he then visited Yugoslavia, where he met its leader Josip Broz Tito, with whom he had a much warmer relationship.[175]

Revolutionary Committees and furthering socialism: 1978–1980

"If socialism is defined as a redistribution of wealth and resources, a socialist revolution clearly occurred in Libya after 1969 and most especially in the second half of the 1970s. The management of the economy was increasingly socialist in intent and effect with wealth in housing, capital and land significantly redistributed or in the process of redistribution. Private enterprise was virtually eliminated, largely replaced by a centrally controlled economy."

In December 1978, Gaddafi stepped down as Secretary-General of the GPC, announcing his new focus on revolutionary rather than governmental activities; this was part of his new emphasis on separating the apparatus of the revolution from the government. Although no longer in a formal governmental post, he adopted the title of "Leader of the Revolution" and continued as commander-in-chief of the armed forces.[196] The historian Dirk Vandewalle stated that despite the Jamahariya's claims to being a direct democracy, Libya remained "an exclusionary political system whose decision-making process" was "restricted to a small cadre of advisers and confidantes" surrounding Gaddafi.[197]

Libya began to turn towards socialism. In March 1978, the government issued guidelines for housing redistribution, attempting to ensure the population that every adult Libyan owned his own home and that nobody was enslaved to paying their rent. Most families were banned from owning more than one house, while former rental properties were expropriated by the state and sold to the tenants at a heavily subsidized price.[198] In September, Gaddafi called for the People's Committees to eliminate the "bureaucracy of the public sector" and the "dictatorship of the private sector"; the People's Committees took control of several hundred companies, converting them into worker cooperatives run by elected representatives.[199]

On 2 March 1979, the GPC announced the separation of government and revolution, the latter being represented by new Revolutionary Committees, who operated in tandem with the People's Committees in schools, universities, unions, the police force and the military.[200] Dominated by revolutionary zealots, most of whom were youths, the Revolutionary Committees were led by Mohammad Maghgoub and a Central Coordinating Office based in Tripoli, and met with Gaddafi annually.[201] Membership of the Revolutionary Committees was drawn from within the BPCs.[188] According to Bearman, the revolutionary committee system became "a key—if not the main—mechanism through which [Gaddafi] exercises political control in Libya".[202] Publishing a weekly magazine The Green March (al-Zahf al-Akhdar), in October 1980 they took control of the press.[200] Responsible for perpetuating revolutionary fervour, they performed ideological surveillance, later adopting a significant security role, making arrests and putting people on trial according to the "law of the revolution" (qanun al-thawra).[203] With no legal code or safeguards, the administration of revolutionary justice was largely arbitrary and resulted in widespread abuses and the suppression of civil liberties: the "Green Terror."[204]

In 1979, the committees began the redistribution of land in the Jefara plain, continuing through 1981.[205] In May 1980, measures to redistribute and equalize wealth were implemented; anyone with over 1000 dinar in their bank account saw that extra money expropriated.[206] The following year, the GPC announced that the government would take control of all import, export and distribution functions, with state supermarkets replacing privately owned businesses; this led to a decline in the availability of consumer goods and the development of a thriving black market.[207] Gaddafi was also frustrated by the slow pace of social reform on women's issues, and in 1979 launched a Revolutionary Women's Formation to replace the more gradualist Libyan General Women's Federation.[208] In 1978 he had established a Women's Military Academy in Tripoli, encouraging all women to enlist for training.[209] The measure was hugely controversial, and voted down by the GPC in February 1983. Gaddafi remained adamant, and when it was again voted down by the GPC in March 1984, he refused to abide by the decision, declaring that "he who opposes the training and emancipation of women is an agent of imperialism, whether he likes it or not."[210]

The Jamahiriya's radical direction earned the government many enemies. Most internal opposition came from Islamic fundamentalists, who were inspired by the events of the 1979 Iranian Revolution.[211] In February 1978, Gaddafi discovered that his head of military intelligence was plotting to kill him, and began to increasingly entrust security to his Qaddadfa tribe.[212] Many who had seen their wealth and property confiscated turned against the administration, and a number of Western-funded opposition groups were founded by exiles. Most prominent was the National Front for the Salvation of Libya (NFSL), founded in 1981 by Mohammed Magariaf, which orchestrated militant attacks against Libya's government.[213] Another, al-Borkan, began killing Libyan diplomats abroad.[214] Following Gaddafi's command to kill these "stray dogs", under Colonel Younis Bilgasim's leadership, the Revolutionary Committees set up overseas branches to suppress counter-revolutionary activity, assassinating various dissidents.[215] Although nearby nations like Syria and Israel also employed hit squads, Gaddafi was unusual in publicly bragging about his administration's use of them;[216] in 1980, he ordered all dissidents to return home or be "liquidated wherever you are."[217]

"I have created a Utopia here in Libya. Not an imaginary one that people write about in books, but a concrete Utopia."

Libya had sought to improve relations with the US under the presidency of Jimmy Carter, for instance by courting his brother, the businessman Billy Carter,[219] but in 1979 the US placed Libya on its list of "State Sponsors of Terrorism".[220] Relations were further damaged at the end of the year when a demonstration torched the U.S. embassy in Tripoli in solidarity with the perpetrators of the Iran hostage crisis.[221] The following year, Libyan fighters began intercepting U.S. fighter jets flying over the Mediterranean, signalling the collapse of relations between the two countries.[220] Libyan relations with Lebanon and Shi'ite communities across the world also deteriorated due to the August 1978 disappearance of imam Musa al-Sadr when visiting Libya; the Lebanese accused Gaddafi of having him killed or imprisoned, a charge he denied.[222] Relations with Syria improved, as Gaddafi and Syrian President Hafez al-Assad shared an enmity with Israel and Egypt's Sadat. In 1980, they proposed a political union, with Libya paying off Syria's £1 billion debt to the Soviet Union; although pressures led Assad to pull out, they remained allies.[223] Another key ally was Uganda, and in 1979, Gaddafi sent 2,500 troops into Uganda to defend the regime of President Idi Amin from Tanzanian invaders. The mission failed; 400 Libyans were killed and they were forced to retreat.[224] Gaddafi later came to regret his alliance with Amin, openly criticizing him as a "fascist" and a "show-off".[225]

Conflict with the USA and its allies: 1981–1986

The early and mid-1980s saw economic trouble for Libya; from 1982 to 1986, the country's annual oil revenues dropped from $21 billion to $5.4 billion.[226] Focusing on irrigation projects, 1983 saw construction start on Libya's largest and most expensive infrastructure project, the Great Man-Made River; although designed to be finished by the end of the decade, it remained incomplete at the start of the 21st century.[227] Military spending increased, while other administrative budgets were cut back.[228] Libya's foreign debt rose,[229] and austerity measures were introduced to promote self-reliance; in August 1985 there was a mass deportation of foreign workers, most of them Egyptian and Tunisian.[230] Domestic threats continued to plague Gaddafi; in May 1984, his Bab al-Azizia home was unsuccessfully attacked by a militia—linked either to the NFSL or the Muslim Brotherhood—and in the aftermath 5000 dissidents were arrested.[231]

Construction for the Great Man-Made River Project

Libya had long supported the FROLINAT militia in neighbouring Chad, and in December 1980, re-invaded Chad at the request of the FROLINAT-controlled GUNT government to aid in the civil war; in January 1981, Gaddafi suggested a political merger. The Organisation of African Unity (OAU) rejected this, and called for a Libyan withdrawal, which came about in November 1981. The civil war resumed, and so Libya sent troops back in, clashing with French forces who supported the southern Chadian forces.[232] Many African nations had tired of Libya's interference in their affairs; by 1980, nine African states had severed diplomatic relations with Libya,[233] while in 1982 the OAU cancelled its scheduled conference in Tripoli to prevent Gaddafi gaining chairmanship.[234] Proposing political unity with Morocco, in August 1984, Gaddafi and Moroccan monarch Hassan II signed the Oujda Treaty, forming the Arab-African Union; such a union was considered surprising due to the strong political differences and longstanding enmity that existed between the two governments. Relations remained strained, particularly due to Morocco's friendly relations with the US and Israel; in August 1986, Hassan abolished the union.[235]

In 1981, the new US President Ronald Reagan pursued a hard line approach to Libya, erroneously claiming it to be a puppet regime of the Soviet Union.[236] In turn, Gaddafi played up his commercial relationship with the Soviets, visiting Moscow again in April 1981 and 1985, and in 1978 threatening to join the Warsaw Pact.[237] The Soviets were nevertheless cautious of Gaddafi, seeing him as an unpredictable extremist.[238] Beginning military exercises in the Gulf of Sirte – an area of sea that Libya claimed as a part of its territorial waters – in August 1981 the US shot down two Libyan Su-22 planes monitoring them.[239] Closing down Libya's embassy in Washington, D.C., Reagan advised US companies operating in the country to reduce the number of American personnel stationed there.[240] In March 1982, the US implemented an embargo of Libyan oil,[241] and in January 1986 ordered all US companies to cease operating in the country, although several hundred workers remained when the Libyan government doubled their pay.[242] Diplomatic relations also broke down with the UK, after Libyan diplomats were accused in the killing of Yvonne Fletcher, a British policewoman stationed outside their London embassy, in April 1984.[243] In Spring 1986, the US Navy again began performing exercises in the Gulf of Sirte; the Libyan military retaliated, but failed as the US sank several Libyan ships.[244]

After the US accused Libya of orchestrating the 1986 Berlin discotheque bombing, in which two American soldiers died, Reagan decided to retaliate militarily.[245] The CIA were critical of the move, believing that Syria was a greater threat and that an attack would strengthen Gaddafi's reputation; however Libya was recognized as a "soft target."[246] Reagan was supported by the UK but opposed by other European allies, who argued that it would contravene international law.[247] In Operation El Dorado Canyon, orchestrated on 15 April 1986, US military planes launched a series of air-strikes on Libya, bombing military installations in various parts of the country, killing around 100 Libyans, including several civilians. One of the targets had been Gaddafi's home. Himself unharmed, two of Gaddafi's sons were injured, and he claimed that his four-year-old adopted daughter Hanna was killed, although her existence has since been questioned.[248] In the immediate aftermath, Gaddafi retreated to the desert to meditate,[249] while there were sporadic clashes between Gaddafists and army officers who wanted to overthrow the government.[250] Although the US was condemned internationally, Reagan received a popularity boost at home.[251] Publicly lambasting US imperialism, Gaddafi's reputation as an anti-imperialist was strengthened both domestically and across the Arab world,[252] and in June 1986, he ordered the names of the month to be changed in Libya.[253]

"Revolution within a Revolution": 1987–1998

The late 1980s saw a series of liberalising economic reforms within Libya designed to cope with the decline in oil revenues. In May 1987, Gaddafi announced the start of the "Revolution within a Revolution", which began with reforms to industry and agriculture and saw the re-opening of small business.[254] Restrictions were placed on the activities of the Revolutionary Committees; in March 1988, their role was narrowed by the newly created Ministry for Mass Mobilization and Revolutionary Leadership to restrict their violence and judicial role, while in August 1988 Gaddafi publicly criticized them.[255]

Gaddafi at the 12th African Union conference in 2009

In March, hundreds of political prisoners were freed, with Gaddafi falsely claiming that there were no further political prisoners in Libya.[256] In June, Libya's government issued the Great Green Charter on Human Rights in the Era of the Masses, in which 27 articles laid out goals, rights and guarantees to improve the situation of human rights in Libya, restricting the use of the death penalty and calling for its eventual abolition. Many of the measures suggested in the charter would be implemented the following year, although others remained inactive.[257] Also in 1989, the government founded the Al-Gaddafi International Prize for Human Rights, to be awarded to figures from the Third World who had struggled against colonialism and imperialism; the first year's winner was South African anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela.[258] From 1994 through to 1997, the government initiated cleansing committees to root out corruption, particularly in the economic sector.[259]

In the aftermath of the 1986 U.S. attack, the army was purged of perceived disloyal elements,[251] and in 1988, Gaddafi announced the creation of a popular militia to replace the army and police.[260] In 1987, Libya began production of mustard gas at a facility in Rabta, although publicly denying it was stockpiling chemical weapons,[261] and unsuccessfully attempted to develop nuclear weapons.[262] The period also saw a growth in domestic Islamist opposition, formulated into groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group. A number of assassination attempts against Gaddafi were foiled, and in turn, 1989 saw the security forces raid mosques believed to be centres of counter-revolutionary preaching.[263] In October 1993, elements of the increasingly marginalized army initiated a failed coup in Misrata, while in September 1995, Islamists launched an insurgency in Benghazi, and in July 1996 an anti-Gaddafist football riot broke out in Tripoli.[264] The Revolutionary Committees experienced a resurgence to combat these Islamists.[265]

In 1989, Gaddafi was overjoyed by the foundation of the Arab Maghreb Union, uniting Libya in an economic pact with Mauritania, Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria, viewing it as beginnings of a new Pan-Arab union.[266] Meanwhile, Libya stepped up its support for anti-Western militants such as the Provisional IRA,[267] and in 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up over Lockerbie in Scotland, killing 243 passengers and 16 crew members, plus 11 people on the ground. British police investigations identified two Libyans – Abdelbaset al-Megrahi and Lamin Khalifah Fhimah – as the chief suspects, and in November 1991 issued a declaration demanding that Libya hand them over. When Gaddafi refused, citing the Montreal Convention, the United Nations (UN) imposed Resolution 748 in March 1992, initiating economic sanctions against Libya which had deep repercussions for the country's economy.[268] The country suffered an estimated $900 million financial loss as a result.[269] Further problems arose with the West when in January 1989, two Libyan warplanes were shot down by the U.S. off the Libyan coast.[270] Many African states opposed the UN sanctions, with Mandela criticizing them on a visit to Gaddafi in October 1997, when he praised Libya for its work in fighting apartheid and awarded Gaddafi the Order of Good Hope.[271] They would only be suspended in 1998 when Libya agreed to allow the extradition of the suspects to the Scottish Court in the Netherlands, in a process overseen by Mandela.[272]

Pan-Africanism, reconciliation and privatization: 1999–2011

Gaddafi wearing an insignia showing the image of the African continent

At the 20th century's end, Gaddafi—frustrated by the failure of his Pan-Arab ideals—increasingly rejected Arab nationalism in favour of Pan-Africanism, emphasising Libya's African identity.[273] From 1997 to 2000, Libya initiated cooperative agreements or bilateral aid arrangements with 10 African states,[274] and in 1999 joined the Community of Sahel-Saharan States.[275] In June 1999, Gaddafi visited Mandela in South Africa,[276] and the following month attended the OAU summit in Algiers, calling for greater political and economic integration across the continent and advocating the foundation of a United States of Africa.[277] He became one of the founders of the African Union (AU), initiated in July 2002 to replace the OAU; at the opening ceremonies, he called for African states to reject conditional aid from the developed world, a direct contrast to the message of South African President Thabo Mbeki.[278]

At the third AU summit, held in Libya in July 2005, he called for greater integration, advocating a single AU passport, a common defence system, and a single currency, utilizing the slogan: "The United States of Africa is the hope."[279] His proposal for a Union of African States project, a project originally conceived by Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana in the 1960s, was rejected at the Assembly of Heads of States and Government (AHSG) summit in Lusaka (2001) by African leaders who thought it was "unrealistic" and "utopian."[280] In June 2005, Libya joined the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA),[281] and in August 2008 Gaddafi was proclaimed "King of Kings" by a committee of traditional African leaders.[282] They crowned him in February 2009, in a ceremony held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; this coincided with Gaddafi's election as AU chairman for a year.[283]

The era saw Libya's return to the international arena. In 1999, Libya began secret talks with the British government to normalize relations.[284] In 2001, Gaddafi condemned the September 11 attacks on the U.S. by al-Qaeda, expressing sympathy with the victims and calling for Libyan involvement in the War on Terror against militant Islamism.[285] His government continued suppressing domestic Islamism, at the same time as Gaddafi called for the wider application of sharia law.[286] Libya also cemented connexions with China and North Korea, being visited by Chinese President Jiang Zemin in April 2002.[287] Influenced by the events of the Iraq War, in December 2003, Libya renounced its possession of weapons of mass destruction, decommissioning its chemical and nuclear weapons programs.[288] Relations with the U.S. improved as a result,[289] while British Prime Minister Tony Blair visited Gaddafi in March 2004;[290] the pair developed close personal ties.[291] The following month, Gaddafi travelled to the headquarters of the European Union (EU) in Brussels, signifying improved relations between Libya and the EU; the latter ended its sanctions in October.[292]

Libya was a strategic player in Europe's attempts to stem illegal migration from Africa.[293] In October 2010, the EU paid Libya €50 million to stop African migrants passing into Europe; Gaddafi encouraged the move, saying that it was necessary to prevent the loss of European cultural identity to a new "Black Europe".[294] Gaddafi also completed agreements with the Italian government that they would invest in various infrastructure projects as reparations for past Italian colonial policies in Libya.[295] Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi gave Libya an official apology in 2006, after which Gaddafi called him the "iron man" for his courage in doing so.[296] Moreover, on 30 August 2008, Gaddafi and Berlusconi signed a historic cooperationtreaty in Benghazi;[297][298] under its terms, Italy would pay $5 billion to Libya as compensation for its former military occupation. In exchange, Libya would take measures to combat illegal immigration coming from its shores and boost investment in Italian companies.[298][299] During their tenures Berlusconi and Gaddafi built up a close friendship.[300][301]

Removed from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism in 2006,[302] Gaddafi nevertheless continued his anti-Western rhetoric, and at the Second Africa-South America Summit, held in Venezuela in September 2009, he called for a military alliance across Africa and Latin America to rival NATO.[303] That month he also addressed the United Nations General Assembly in New York for the first time, using it to condemn "Western aggression".[304][305] In Spring 2010, Gaddafi proclaimed jihad against Switzerland after Swiss police accused two of his family members of criminal activity in the country, resulting in the breakdown of bilateral relations.[294]

Libya's economy witnessed increasing privatization; although rejecting the socialist policies of nationalized industry advocated in The Green Book, government figures asserted that they were forging "people's socialism" rather than capitalism.[306] Gaddafi welcomed these reforms, calling for wide-scale privatization in a March 2003 speech.[307] In 2003, the oil industry was largely sold to private corporations,[308] and by 2004, there was $40 billion of direct foreign investment in Libya, a sixfold rise over 2003.[309] Sectors of Libya's population reacted against these reforms with public demonstrations,[310] and in March 2006, revolutionary hard-liners took control of the GPC cabinet; although scaling back the pace of the changes, they did not halt them.[311] In 2010, plans were announced that would have seen half the Libyan economy privatized over the following decade.[312]

While there was no accompanying political liberalization, with Gaddafi retaining predominant control,[313] in March 2010, the government devolved further powers to the municipal councils.[314] Rising numbers of reformist technocrats attained positions in the country's governance; best known was Gaddafi's son and heir apparent Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, who was openly critical of Libya's human rights record. He led a group who proposed the drafting of the new constitution, although it was never adopted.[315] Involved in encouraging tourism, Saif founded several privately run media channels in 2008, but after criticizing the government they were nationalized in 2009.[316] In October 2010, Gaddafi apologized to African leaders for the historical enslavement of Africans by the Arab slave trade.[317]

Origins and development: February–August 2011

Following the start of the Arab Spring in 2011, Gaddafi spoke out in favour of Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, then threatened by the Tunisian Revolution. He suggested that Tunisia's people would be satisfied if Ben Ali introduced a Jamahiriyah system there.[318] Fearing domestic protest, Libya's government implemented preventative measures by reducing food prices, purging the army leadership of potential defectors and releasing several Islamist prisoners.[319] They proved ineffective, and on 17 February 2011, major protests broke out against Gaddafi's government. Unlike Tunisia or Egypt, Libya was largely religiously homogeneous and had no strong Islamist movement, but there was widespread dissatisfaction with the corruption and entrenched systems of patronage, while unemployment had reached around 30%.[320]

Accusing the rebels of being "drugged" and linked to al-Qaeda, Gaddafi proclaimed that he would die a martyr rather than leave Libya.[321] As he announced that the rebels would be "hunted down street by street, house by house and wardrobe by wardrobe",[322] the army opened fire on protests in Benghazi, killing hundreds.[323] Shocked at the government's response, a number of senior politicians resigned or defected to the protesters' side.[324] The uprising spread quickly through Libya's less economically developed eastern half.[325] By February's end, eastern cities like Benghazi, Misrata, al-Bayda and Tobruk were controlled by rebels,[326] and the Benghazi-based National Transitional Council (NTC) had been founded to represent them.[327]

Pro-Gaddafi protests in Tripoli, May 2011

In the conflict's early months it appeared that Gaddafi's government—with its greater fire-power—would be victorious.[325] Both sides disregarded the laws of war, committing human rights abuses, including arbitrary arrests, torture, extrajudicial executions and revenge attacks.[328] On 26 February the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1970, suspending Libya from the UN Human Rights Council, implementing sanctions and calling for an International Criminal Court (ICC) investigation into the killing of unarmed civilians.[329] In March, the Security Council declared a no fly zone to protect the civilian population from aerial bombardment, calling on foreign nations to enforce it; it also specifically prohibited foreign occupation.[330] Ignoring this, Qatar sent hundreds of troops to support the dissidents, and along with France and the United Arab Emirates provided the NTC with weaponry and training.[331] NATO announced that it would enforce the no-fly zone.[332] On 30 April a NATO air strike killed Gaddafi's sixth son and three of his grandsons in Tripoli.[333]

In June, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Gaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam, and his brother-in-law Abdullah Senussi, head of state security, for charges concerning crimes against humanity.[334] That month, Amnesty International published their report, finding that while Gaddafi's forces were responsible for numerous war crimes, many other allegations of mass human rights abuses lacked credible evidence and were likely fabrications by rebel forces that had been promoted by Western media.[335] In July, over 30 governments recognized the NTC as the legitimate government of Libya; Gaddafi called on his supporters to "Trample on those recognitions, trample on them under your feet... They are worthless".[2] In August, the Arab League recognized the NTC to be "the legitimate representative of the Libyan state".[4]

Aided by NATO air cover, the rebel militia pushed westward, defeating loyalist armies and securing control of the centre of the country.[336] Gaining the support of Amazigh (Berber) communities of the Nafusa Mountains, who had long been persecuted as non-Arabic speakers under Gaddafi, the NTC armies surrounded Gaddafi loyalists in several key areas of western Libya.[336] In August, the rebels seized Zliten and Tripoli, ending the last vestiges of Gaddafist power.[337]

Capture and death: September–October 2011

Only a few towns in western Libya—such as Bani Walid, Sebha and Sirte—remained Gaddafist strongholds.[337] Retreating to Sirte after Tripoli's fall,[338] Gaddafi announced his willingness to negotiate for a handover to a transitional government, a suggestion rejected by the NTC.[337] Surrounding himself with bodyguards,[338] he continually moved residences to escape NTC shelling, devoting his days to prayer and reading the Qur'an.[339] On 20 October, Gaddafi broke out of Sirte's District 2 in a joint civilian-military convoy, hoping to take refuge in the Jarref Valley.[340][341] At around 8.30am, NATO bombers attacked, destroying at least 14 vehicles and killing at least 53.[341][342] The convoy scattered, and Gaddafi and those closest to him fled to a nearby villa, which was shelled by rebel militia from Misrata. Fleeing to a construction site, Gaddafi and his inner cohort hid inside drainage pipes while his bodyguards battled the rebels; in the conflict, Gaddafi suffered head injuries from a grenade blast while defence minister Abu-Bakr Yunis Jabr was killed.[341][343]

The Misrata militia took Gaddafi prisoner, causing serious injuries as they tried to apprehend him; the events were filmed on a mobile phone. A video appears to picture Gaddafi being poked or stabbed in the anus "with some kind of stick or knife"[344] or possibly a bayonet.[345] Pulled onto the front of a pick-up truck, he fell off as it drove away. His semi-naked, lifeless body was then placed into an ambulance and taken to Misrata; upon arrival, he was found to be dead.[346] Official NTC accounts claimed that Gaddafi was caught in a cross-fire and died from his bullet wounds.[341] Other eye-witness accounts claimed that rebels had fatally shot Gaddafi in the stomach.[341] Gaddafi's son Mutassim, who had also been among the convoy, was also captured, and found dead several hours later, most probably from an extrajudicial execution.[347] Around 140 Gaddafi loyalists were rounded up from the convoy; tied up and abused, the corpses of 66 were found at the nearby Mahari Hotel, victims of extrajudicial execution.[348] Libya's chief forensic pathologist, Othman al-Zintani, carried out the autopsies of Gaddafi, his son and Jabr in the days following their deaths; although the pathologist initially told the press that Gaddafi had died from a gunshot wound to the head, the autopsy report was not made public.[349]

On the afternoon of Gaddafi's death, NTC Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril publicly revealed the news.[341] Gaddafi's corpse was placed in the freezer of a local market alongside the corpses of Yunis Jabr and Mutassim; the bodies were publicly displayed for four days, with Libyans from all over the country coming to view them.[350] In response to international calls, on 24 October Jibril announced that a commission would investigate Gaddafi's death.[351] On 25 October, the NTC announced that Gaddafi had been buried at an unidentified location in the desert.[352] Seeking vengeance for the killing, Gaddafist sympathizers fatally wounded one of those who had captured Gaddafi, Omran Shaaban, near Bani Walid in September 2012.[353]

Political ideology

"We call it the Third [International] Theory to indicate that there is a new path for all those who reject both materialist capitalism and atheist communism. The path is for all the people of the world who abhor the dangerous confrontation between the Warsaw and North Atlantic military alliances. It is for all those who believe that all nations of the world are brothers under the aegis of the rule of God."

Gaddafi's ideological worldview was moulded by his environment, namely his Islamic faith, his Bedouin upbringing, and his disgust at the actions of European colonialists in Libya.[355] As a schoolboy, Gaddafi adopted the ideologies of Arab nationalism and Arab socialism, influenced in particular by Nasserism, the thought of the Egyptian President Nasser, whom Gaddafi regarded as his hero.[356] During the early 1970s, Gaddafi formulated his own particular approach to Arab nationalism and socialism, known as Third International Theory, which has been described as a combination of "utopian socialism, Arab nationalism, and the Third World revolutionary theory that was in vogue at the time".[357] He regarded this system as a practical alternative to the then-dominant international models of Western capitalism and Marxism–Leninism.[358] He laid out the principles of this Theory in the three volumes of The Green Book, in which he sought to "explain the structure of the ideal society."[359]

Libyan studies specialist Ronald Bruce St. John regarded Arab nationalism as Gaddafi's "primordial value",[360] stating that during the early years of his government, Gaddafi was "the Arab nationalist par excellence".[361] Gaddafi called for the Arab world to regain its dignity and assert a major place on the world stage, blaming Arab backwardness on stagnation resulting from Ottoman rule, European colonialism and imperialism, and corrupt and repressive monarchies.[362] Gaddafi's Arab nationalist views led him to the Pan-Arabist belief in the need for unity across the Arab world, combining the Arab nation under a single nation-state.[363] To this end, he had proposed political union with five neighbouring Arab states by 1974, although without success.[364] In keeping with his views regarding Arabs, his political stance was described as nativist.[365] Gaddafi saw his socialist Jamahiriyah as a model for the Arab, Islamic, and non-aligned worlds to follow,[366] and in his speeches declared that his Third International Theory would eventually guide the whole world.[367] He nevertheless had minimal success in exporting the ideology outside of Libya.[368]

Along with Arab nationalism, anti-imperialism was also a defining feature of Gaddafi's regime during its early years. He believed in opposing Western imperialism and colonialism in the Arab world, including any Western expansionism through the form of Israel.[369] For many years, anti-Zionism was a fundamental component of Gaddafi's ideology. He believed that the state of Israel should not exist, and that any Arab compromise with the Israeli government was a betrayal of the Arab people.[370] In large part due to their support of Israel, Gaddafi despised the United States, considering the country to be imperialist and lambasting it as "the embodiment of evil."[371] He rallied against Jews in many of his speeches, with Blundy and Lycett claiming that his anti-Semitism was "almost Hitlerian".[372] His views later shifted; in 2009, he stated that "the Jews have been held captive, massacred, disadvantaged in every possible fashion... [they] want and deserve their homeland." He called for both Jews and Palestinians to "move beyond old conflicts and look to a unified future based on shared culture and respect", forging a single-state that he termed "Isratin".[373]

Islamic modernism and Islamic socialism

Gaddafi rejected the secularist approach to Arab nationalism that had been pervasive in Syria.[374] Instead, he deemed Arabism and Islam to be inseparable, referring to them as "one and indivisible",[375] and called on the Arab world's Christian minority to convert to Islam.[376] He insisted that Islamic law should be the basis for the law of the state, blurring any distinction between the religious and secular realms.[377] He desired unity across the Islamic world,[378] and encouraged the propagation of the faith elsewhere; on a 2010 visit to Italy, he paid a modelling agency to find 200 young Italian women for a lecture he gave urging them to convert.[379] According to Gaddafi biographer Jonathan Bearman, in Islamic terms Gaddafi was a modernist rather than a fundamentalist, for he subordinated religion to the political system rather than seeking to Islamicize the state as Islamists sought to do.[380] He was driven by a sense of "divine mission", believing himself a conduit of God's will, and thought that he must achieve his goals "no matter what the cost".[381] His interpretation of Islam was nevertheless idiosyncratic,[380] and he clashed with conservative Libyan clerics. Many criticized his attempts to encourage women to enter traditionally male-only sectors of society, such as the armed forces. Gaddafi was keen to improve women's status, although saw the sexes as "separate but equal" and therefore felt women should usually remain in traditional roles.[382]

"The purpose of the socialist society is the happiness of man, which can only be realized through material and spiritual freedom. Attainment of such freedom depends on the extent of man's ownership of his needs; ownership that is personal and sacredly guaranteed, i.e. your needs must neither be owned by somebody else, nor subject to plunder by any part of society."

Gaddafi described his approach to economics as "Islamic socialism".[384] For him, a socialist society could be defined as one in which men controlled their own needs, either through personal ownership or through a collective.[383] Although the early policies pursued by his government were state capitalist in orientation, by 1978 he believed that private ownership of the means of production was exploitative and thus he sought to move Libya away from capitalism and towards socialism.[385] The extent to which Libya became socialist under Gaddafi is disputed. Bearman suggested that while Libya did undergo "a profound social revolution", he did not think that "a socialist society" was established in Libya.[386] Conversely, St. John expressed the view that "if socialism is defined as a redistribution of wealth and resources, a socialist revolution clearly occurred in Libya" under Gaddafi's regime.[195]

Gaddafi was staunchly anti-Marxist,[387] and in 1973 declared that "it is the duty of every Muslim to combat" Marxism because it promotes atheism.[388] In his view, ideologies like Marxism and Zionism were alien to the Islamic world and were a threat to the ummah, or global Islamic community.[389] Nevertheless, Blundy and Lycett noted that Gaddafi's socialism had a "curiously Marxist undertone",[390] with political scientist Sami Hajjar arguing that Gaddafi's model of socialism offered a simplification of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels' theories.[391] While acknowledging the Marxist influence on Gaddafi's thought, Bearman stated that the Libyan leader rejected Marxism's core tenet, that of class struggle as the main engine of social development.[392] Instead of embracing the Marxist idea that a socialist society emerged from class struggle between the proletariat and bourgeoisie, Gaddafi believed that socialism would be achieved through overturning 'unnatural' capitalism and returning society to its "natural equilibrium".[392] In this he sought to replace a capitalist economy with one based on his own romanticized ideas of a traditional, pre-capitalist past.[393] This owed much to the Islamic belief in God's natural law providing order to the universe.[394]

Personal life

Gaddafi (right) with Nimeiry and Nasser in 1969

A very private individual,[355] Gaddafi was given to rumination and solitude, and could be reclusive.[395] The reporter Mirella Bianco interviewed Gaddafi's father, who stated that his son was "always serious, even taciturn", also being courageous, intelligent, pious, and family oriented.[396] Gaddafi's friends described him to Bianco as a loyal and generous man.[397] More widely, he was often regarded as being "bizarre, irrational or quixotic".[398] Bearman noted that Gaddafi was emotionally volatile and had an impulsive temperament,[395] with the CIA believing that the Libyan leader suffered from clinical depression.[399] Gaddafi described himself as a "simple revolutionary" and "pious Muslim" called upon by God to continue Nasser's work.[400] Gaddafi was an austere and devout Muslim,[401] although according to Vandewalle, his interpretation of Islam was "deeply personal and idiosyncratic."[197] He was also a football enthusiast,[402] and enjoyed both playing the sport and horse riding as a means of recreation.[403] He was a fan of Beethoven, and said his favourite novels were Uncle Tom's Cabin, Roots, and The Outsider.[402]

Gaddafi regarded personal appearance as important,[403] with Blundy and Lycett referring to him as "extraordinarily vain".[404] Gaddafi had a large wardrobe, and sometimes changed his outfit multiple times a day.[404] He favoured either a military uniform or traditional Libyan dress, tending to eschew Western-style suits.[403] He saw himself as a fashion icon, stating "Whatever I wear becomes a fad. I wear a certain shirt and suddenly everyone is wearing it."[404] Following his ascension to power, Gaddafi moved into the Bab al-Azizia barracks, a 6-square-kilometre (2.3 sq mi) fortified compound located two miles from the centre of Tripoli. His home and office at Azizia was a bunker designed by West German engineers, while the rest of his family lived in a large two-story building. Within the compound were also two tennis courts, a soccer field, several gardens, camels, and a Bedouin tent in which he entertained guests.[405] In the 1980s, his lifestyle was considered modest in comparison to those of many other Arab leaders.[406]

He was preoccupied with his own security, regularly changing where he slept and sometimes grounding all other planes in Libya when he was flying.[191] He made particular requests when traveling to foreign nations. During his trips to Rome, Paris, Madrid, Moscow, and New York City,[407][408] he resided in a bulletproof tent, following his Bedouin traditions.[407][409] Gaddafi was notably confrontational in his approach to foreign powers,[410] and generally shunned Western ambassadors and diplomats, believing them to be spies.[399]

Gaddafi has been described as a womanizer.[411]
In the 1970s and 1980s there were reports of his making sexual advances toward female reporters and members of his entourage.[411] Starting in the 1980s, he travelled with his all-female Amazonian Guard, who were allegedly sworn to a life of celibacy.[412] After Gaddafi's death, the Libyan psychologist Seham Sergewa—part of a team investigating sexual offences during the civil war—stated that five of the guards told her they had been raped by Gaddafi and senior officials.[413] After Gaddafi's death, the French journalist Annick Cojean published a book alleging that Gaddafi had had sexual relations with women, some in their early teenage years, who had been specially selected for him.[414] One of those Cojean interviewed, a woman named Soraya, claimed that Gaddafi kept her imprisoned in a basement for six years, where he repeatedly raped her, urinated on her, and forced her to watch pornography, drink alcohol, and snort cocaine.[415]
Gaddafi also hired several Ukrainian nurses to care for him; one described him as kind and considerate, and was surprised that allegations of abuse had been made against him.[416]

Public image

According to Vandewalle, Gaddafi "dominated [Libya's] political life" during his period in power.[420] The sociologist Raymond A. Hinnebusch described the Libyan as "perhaps the most exemplary contemporary case of the politics of charismatic leadership", displaying all of the traits of charismatic authority outlined by the sociologist Max Weber.[421] According to Hinnebusch, the foundations of Gaddafi's "personal charismatic authority" in Libya stemmed from the blessing he had received from Nasser coupled with "nationalist achievements" such as the expulsion of foreign military bases, the extraction of higher prices for Libyan oil, and his vocal support for the Palestinian and other anti-imperialist causes.[422]

A cult of personality devoted to Gaddafi existed in Libya.[423] Depictions of his face could be found throughout the country, including on postage stamps, watches, and school satchels.[424] Quotations from The Green Book appeared on a wide variety of places, from street walls to airports and pens, and were put to pop music for public release.[424] Gaddafi claimed that he disliked this personality cult, but that he tolerated it because Libya's people adored him.[424] The cult served a political purpose, with Gaddafi helping to provide a central identity for the Libyan state.[395]

Several biographers and observers characterised Gaddafi as a populist.[425] He enjoyed attending lengthy public sessions where people were invited to question him; these were often televised.[426] Throughout Libya, crowds of supporters would arrive at public events where he appeared. Described as "spontaneous demonstrations" by the government, there are recorded instances of groups being coerced or paid to attend.[427] He was typically late to public events, and would sometimes fail to arrive.[428] Although Bianco thought he had a "gift for oratory",[396] he was considered a poor orator by biographers Blundy and Lycett.[103] Biographer Daniel Kawczynski noted that Gaddafi was famed for his "lengthy, wandering" speeches,[429] which typically involved criticizing Israel and the U.S.[428] The journalist Ruth First described his speeches as being "an inexhaustible flow; didactic, at times incoherent; peppered with snatches of half-formed opinions; admonitions; confidences; some sound common sense, and as much prejudice".[430]

Reception and legacy

According to Bearman, Gaddafi "evoked the extremes of passion: supreme adoration from his following, bitter contempt from his opponents".[431] Bearman added that "in a country that formerly suffered foreign domination, [Gaddafi]'s anti-imperialism has proved enduringly popular".[432] Gaddafi's domestic popularity stemmed from his overthrow of the monarchy, his removal of the Italian settlers and both American and British air bases from Libyan territory, and his redistribution of the country's land on a more equitable basis.[432] Supporters praised Gaddafi's administration for the creation of an almost classless society through domestic reform.[433] They stressed the regime's achievements in combating homelessness, ensuring access to food and safe drinking water, and to dramatic improvements in education; under Gaddafi, literacy rates rose significantly and all education to university level was free.[433] Supporters have also applauded achievements in medical care, praising the universal free healthcare provided under the Gaddafist administration, with diseases like cholera and typhoid being contained and life expectancy raised.[433]

Biographers Blundy and Lycett believed that under the first decade of Gaddafi's leadership, life for most Libyans "undoubtedly changed for the better" as material conditions and wealth drastically improved,[85] while Libyan studies specialist Lillian Craig Harris remarked that in the early years of his administration, Libya's "national wealth and international influence soared, and its national standard of living has risen dramatically."[434] Such high standards declined during the 1980s, as a result of economic stagnation;[435] it was in this decade that the number of Libyan defectors increased.[436] Gaddafi claimed that his Jamahiriya was a "concrete utopia", and that he had been appointed by "popular assent",[437] with some Islamic supporters believing that he exhibited barakah.[355] His opposition to Western governments earned him the respect of many in the Euro-American far right,[438] with the UK-based National Front for instance embracing aspects of the Third International Theory during the 1980s.[439] His anti-Western stance also attracted praise from the far left; in 1971, the Soviet Union awarded him the Order of Lenin, although his mistrust of atheist Marxism prevented him from attending the ceremony in Moscow.[388] First noted that, during the early 1970s, various students at the Paris 8 University were hailing Gaddafi as "the only Third World leader with any real stomach for struggle".[440]

Portrait of Gaddafi near the Libyan-Tunisian border, 2008

The Libyan anti-Gaddafist movement brought together a diverse array of groups, which had varied motives and objectives.[436] It comprised monarchists and members of the old, pre-Gaddafist elite, conservative nationalists who backed his Arab nationalist agenda but opposed his left-wing economic reforms, technocrats who had their future prospects stunted by the coup, and Islamic fundamentalists who opposed his radical reforms.[441]
Gaddafi's critics regarded him as "despotic, cruel, arrogant, vain and stupid".[442] He became a bogeyman for Western governments,[431] who presented him as the "vicious dictator of an oppressed people".[437] Reagan famously dubbed him the "mad dog of the Middle East".[443] According to critics, the Libyan people lived in a climate of fear under Gaddafi's administration, due to his government's pervasive surveillance of civilians.[444] Gaddafi's Libya was typically described by Western commentators as a police state,[445] and has also been characterized as authoritarian.[369] His administration has also been criticized by political opponents and groups like Amnesty International for the human rights abuses carried out by the country's security services. These abuses included the repression of dissent, public executions, and the arbitrary detention of hundreds of opponents, some of whom reported being tortured.[446] One of the most prominent examples of this was a massacre that took place in Abu Salim prison in June 1996; Human Rights Watch estimated that 1,270 prisoners were massacred.[447][448] Dissidents abroad were labelled "stray dogs"; they were publicly threatened with death and sometimes killed by government hit squads.[449]

The academic Yash Tandon stated that Gaddafi was "probably the most controversial, and outrageously daring (and adventurous) challenger of the Empire" (i.e. Western powers) but that he had nevertheless been unable to escape neo-colonial control exerted over Libya.[450]
His government's treatment of non-Arab Libyans has also came in for criticism from human rights activists, with native Berbers, Italians, Jews, refugees, and foreign workers all facing persecution in Gaddafist Libya.[451] Human rights groups also criticized the treatment of migrants, including asylum seekers, who passed through Gaddafi's Libya on their way to Europe.[452] According to journalist Annick Cojean and psychologist Seham Sergewa, Gaddafi and senior officials raped and imprisoned hundreds or thousands of young women and reportedly raped several of his female bodyguards.[415][413] Gaddafi's actions in promoting foreign militant groups, although regarded by him as a justifiable support for national liberation movements, was seen by the United States as interference in the domestic affairs of other nations and active support for international terrorism.[453]

Posthumous assessment

International reactions to Gaddafi's death were divided. U.S. President Barack Obama stated that it meant that "the shadow of tyranny over Libya has been lifted,"[454] while UK Prime Minister David Cameron stated that he was "proud" of his country's role in overthrowing "this brutal dictator".[455] Contrastingly, former Cuban President Fidel Castro commented that in defying the rebels, Gaddafi would "enter history as one of the great figures of the Arab nations",[456] while Venezuela's Chávez described him as "a great fighter, a revolutionary and a martyr."[457] Former South African President Nelson Mandela expressed sadness at the news, praising Gaddafi for his anti-apartheid stance, remarking that he backed the African National Congress during "the darkest moments of our struggle".[458] Gaddafi was mourned as a hero by many across Sub-Saharan Africa;[459] The Daily Times of Nigeria for instance stated that while undeniably a dictator, Gaddafi was the most benevolent in a region that only knew dictatorship, and that he was "a great man that looked out for his people and made them the envy of all of Africa."[460] The Nigerian newspaper Leadership reported that while many Libyans and Africans would mourn Gaddafi, this would be ignored by Western media and that as such it would take 50 years before historians decided whether he was "martyr or villain."[461]

Following his defeat in the civil war, Gaddafi's system of governance was dismantled and replaced by the interim government of the NTC, which legalised trade unions and freedom of the press. In July 2012, elections were held to form a new General National Congress (GNC), which officially took over governance from the NTC in August. The GNC elected Mohammed Magariaf as president of the chamber, and Mustafa A.G. Abushagur as Prime Minister; when Abushagar failed to gain congressional approval, the GNC elected Ali Zeidan to the position.[462] In January 2013, the GNC officially renamed the Jamahiriyah as the "State of Libya".[463] The pro-Gaddafists remaining in Libya came to be known as the Green Movement, and were formalized into the Libyan Popular National Movement party, established by Khuwaildi al-Hamidi. The Libyan government prevented this party from taking part in the 2012 parliamentary elections and banned the display of Gaddafist symbols.[464]
Gaddafists then founded a new political party, Al Fateh Al Jadeed; two of its members, Subah Mussa and Ahmed Ali, promoted the new venture by hijacking the Afriqiyah Airways Flight 209 in December 2016.[465]

References

Notes

^For purposes of this article, 20 October 2011—the date on which Gaddafi died[1]—is considered to be when Gaddafi left office. Other dates might have been chosen:

On 15 July 2011, at a meeting in Istanbul, more than 30 governments, including the United States, withdrew recognition from Gaddafi's government and recognized the National Transitional Council (NTC) as the legitimate government of Libya.[2]

On 23 August 2011, during the Battle of Tripoli, Gaddafi lost effective political and military control of Tripoli after his compound was captured by rebel forces.[3]

On 25 August 2011, the Arab League proclaimed the anti-Gaddafi National Transitional Council to be "the legitimate representative of the Libyan state".[4]

^Arabic: [muˈʕamːar alqaˈðːaːfiː] (listen). Due to the lack of standardization of transcribing written and regionally pronounced Arabic, Gaddafi's name has been romanized in various ways. A 1986 column by The Straight Dope lists 32 spellings known from the U.S. Library of Congress,[5] while ABC identified 112 possible spellings.[6] A 2007 interview with Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam Gaddafi confirms that Saif spelled his own name Qadhafi,[7] and the passport of Gaddafi's son Mohammed used the spelling Gathafi.[8] According to Google Ngram the variant Qaddafi was slightly more widespread, followed by Qadhafi, Gaddafi, and Gadhafi.[9][10] Scientific romanizations of the name are Qaḏḏāfī (DIN, Wehr, ISO) or (rarely used) Qadhdhāfī (ALA-LC). The Libyan Arabic pronunciation[11] is [ɡəˈðːaːfiː] (eastern dialects) or [ɡəˈdːaːfiː] (western dialects), hence the frequent quasi-phonemic romanization Gaddafi for the latter.

Karniel, Yuval; Lavie-Dinur, Amit; Azran, Tal (2015). "Broadcast Coverage of Gaddafi's Final Hours in Images and Headlines: A Brutal Lynch or the Desired Death of a Terrorist?". The International Communication Gazette. 77 (2): 171–188. doi:10.1177/1748048514562686.

1.
Colonel
–
Colonel is a senior military officer rank below the general officer ranks. However, in small military forces, such as those of Iceland or the Vatican. It is also used in police forces and paramilitary organizations. Historically, in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a colonel was typically in charge of a regiment in an army, the rank of colonel is typically above the rank of lieutenant colonel. The rank above colonel is typically called brigadier, brigade general or brigadier general, equivalent naval ranks may be called captain or ship-of-the-line captain. In the Commonwealth air force rank system, the equivalent rank is group captain, the word colonel derives from the same root as the word column and means of a column, and, by implication, commander of a column. The word colonel is therefore linked to the column in a similar way that brigadier is linked to brigade. By the end of the medieval period, a group of companies was referred to as a column of an army. Since the word is believed to derive from sixteenth-century Italian, it was presumably first used by Italian city states in that century. The first use of colonel as a rank in an army was in the French National Legions created by King Francis I by his decree of 1534. Building on the reforms of Louis XIIs decree of 1509. Each colonel commanded a legion with a strength of six thousand men. With the shift from primarily mercenary to primarily national armies in the course of the seventeenth century, the Spanish equivalent rank of coronel was used by the Spanish tercios in the 16th and 17th centuries. Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, nicknamed the Great Captain, divided his armies in coronelías or colonelcies, however, the Spanish word probably derives from a different origin, in that it appears to designate an officer of the crown, rather than an officer of the column. This makes the Spanish word coronel probably cognate with the English word coroner and this regiment, or governance, was to some extent embodied in a contract and set of written rules, also referred to as the colonels regiment or standing regulation. By extension, the group of companies subject to a colonels regiment came to be referred to as his regiment as well, the position, however, was primarily contractual and it became progressively more of a functionless sinecure. By the late 19th century, colonel was a military rank though still held typically by an officer in command of a regiment or equivalent unit. As European military influence expanded throughout the world, the rank of colonel became adopted by every nation

2.
Brotherly Leader and Guide of the Revolution
–
However, critics have long described him as a demagogue, referring to his position as the de jure former political office, despite the Libyan states denial of him holding any power. After the coup détat on 1 September 1969, in which King Idris I was deposed, Gaddafi then became Secretary-General of the General Peoples Congress. Although this title was used only from 1979, it is often applied for the whole period of Gaddafis rule. Although Gaddafi had no official government function from 1979, it was understood that he exercised control over the government. His 42 years in power prior to the war in 2011 have made him the fifth longest-ruling non-royal national leader since 1900. The Libyan Arab Jamahiriya was formally managed on the basis of political ideology set out in The Green Book, the ideology was based on the idea of direct democracy, and direct decision-making of all citizens on all political matters. Across the country there were the peoples congresses, which were considered the original holders of sovereignty. These included the composition of its adult citizens - both men and women, of their managerial and executive bodies formed the municipal peoples congresses and committees, and then the General Peoples Congress and the General Peoples Committee. All laws were approved by the peoples congresses, and then finally adopted by the General Peoples Congress. List of heads of state of Libya List of heads of government of Libya

3.
Abdul Ati al-Obeidi
–
Abdul Ati al-Obeidi, born 10 October 1939) is a Libyan politician and diplomat. He held various top posts in Libya under Muammar Gaddafi, he was Prime Minister from 1977 to 1979, abdul Ati al-Obeidi was one of three main negotiators in Libyas decision to denounce and drop their nuclear weapons program. Amidst a civil war between Gaddafi loyalists and rebels, he was Foreign Minister in 2011, on 31 August 2011 he was detained west of Tripoli by rebel forces

4.
Shukri Ghanem
–
Ghanem subsequently served as the Minister of Oil until 2011. On 29 April 2012, his body was found floating on the New Danube, on 16 May, Al Arabiya and the NTC reported that Shukri Ghanem defected to Tunisia. The next day Tunisian security officials confirmed he had indeed defected into Tunisia, Ghanem was born in Tripoli on 9 October 1942. He studied economics at Garyounis University in Benghazi and graduated in 1963 and he also held PhD in international economics from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and Harvard University in 1975. Ghanem was previously in charge of the OPEC secretariat, and was the Director of its Research Division, in 2003, Ghanem was appointed General Secretary of the General People’s Committee or Prime Minister. In March 2006, Ghanem was appointed Chairman of Libyas NOC and he tendered his resignation from NOC in August 2009 amidst probable disagreements within the Libyan government over the development of the oil sector. After defection to Vienna in 2011, he served as a consultant for a Vienna-based company until his death, Libya had been diplomatically isolated and subject to international sanctions since the November 1991 indictment of two Libyans for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 on 21 December 1988. Following Ghanems appointment as minister, Libya successfully sought re-entry into the international community. In February 2004, Ghanem was interviewed on the BBC Radio 4 Today program and he stirred controversy in the interview by repudiating Libyas responsibility both for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing and the 1984 murder of British WPC Yvonne Fletcher. This incident led to the severing of UK/Libya diplomatic relations, when asked whether the payment of compensation meant that Libya did not accept any guilt or responsibility, Ghanem replied, I agree with that, and this is why I say we bought peace. Under pressure from the United States and Britain, Ghanems comments were quickly retracted by Gaddafi and it is unclear whether Shukri Ghanems dismissal as prime minister in 2006 was a consequence of those controversial remarks he made two years earlier. On 16 May 2011, it was reported that Ghanem has defected from the Gaddafi government and fled, on 8 April 2011, against the background of the Libyan Civil War, the US Treasury department announced sanctions against him. In May 2011, he defected to Rome and then, Vienna, on 1 June 2011, Ghanem confirmed in Rome, that he had decided to join the Libyan opposition. He was mistrusted by the new Libyan government due to his friendship with the Gaddafi family. Prior to his death, the interim Libyan government was preparing an Interpol arrest warrant against him, at the same time, he was also wanted as a witness in the trial against Saif al-Islam Gaddafi. Ghanem was married and had four children, three daughters and a son, Ghanem then lived with his family in Vienna, Austria where he had an apartment and where also one of his daughters lives. Prior to his death, Ghanem had expressed concerns about the latest developments in Libya. Ghanems body was fully clothed floating at 5 AM instead of the reported 08,40 CEST on 29 April 2012 in a branch of the River Danube though there were no signs of violence

5.
Baghdadi Mahmudi
–
He has a medical degree, specialising in obstetrics and gynecology, and had served as Deputy Prime Minister to Prime Minister Shukri Ghanem since 2003 at the time he was appointed to replace him. He was a part of Gaddafis inner circle at least prior to his escape in mid-2011, Mahmudi came from the Zawiya District of northwestern Libya. He was trained as a physician, and in 1992 was appointed Minister of Health, in 1997, he was replaced in that ministry by Suleiman al-Ghamari and from then until 2000 Mahmudi was the Minister for the Peoples Committees Affairs. For seven months in 2000, he was the deputy minister for Services Affairs. Mahmudi then became Minister of Human Resources Affairs for six months, in September 2001, he was appointed deputy prime minister for Production Affairs. On 7 March 2004, he became the deputy minister for Libya. From 2006 until 2011, Mahmudi was the Secretary of the General Peoples Committee and he also held the chairmanship of both the Libyan Investment Authority and the Libyan Oil and Gas Council. On 26 February 2011, the United Nations Security Council issued Resolution 1970 which imposed a ban on Mahmudi.5 billion. For this sector it has been allocated already a high percentage of the development funds, for this reason, we are concluding several agreements with foreign companies that are interested in investing in these projects, like for example in the Benghazi plains. Mahmudi has also stated that Libya has amassed more than US$100 billion in a sovereign wealth fund, on 21 August 2011, amid the Battle of Tripoli, Mahmudi reportedly fled to Djerba, a resort island in Tunisia. Supporters of the movement attempted to storm the hotel where he was staying, according to the reports. On 22 September 2011, Mahumdi was detained and sentenced to 6 months in jail for illegally entering Tunisia without a visa, an appeals court approved the decision to extradite him to Libya on 8 November. On 1 September 2011, Mahmudi told an Arabic news channel that he supports those fighting against the former Libyan leader and he made the comments to Al Arabiya television which broadcast details in brief headlines. Mahmudi said he was still in Libya and in contact with the National Transitional Council now in charge, on 8 November 2011, it was reported that a Tunisian court ruled that Mahmudi should be extradited to Libya. His lawyer, Mabrouk Korchid, said that “The judge decided to extradite him to Libya, It’s an unfair decision, if any harm comes to him in Libya, the Tunisian justice system will be a party to that. On 4 December 2011, Tunisian interim President Foued Mebazaa confirmed that he would not sign a decree to extradite Mahmudi due to fears that he would be subjected to torture if returned to Libya. On 21 December 2011, it was reported that Mahmudis health was seriously degraded following a strike in his prison. On 24 June 2012, it was reported that Mahmudi was finally extradited to Libya and his lawyer argued that Mahmoudi was beaten by Libyan security officers in Tripoli after his extradition

6.
Mustafa Abdul Jalil
–
Mustafa Abdul Jalil is a Libyan politician who was the Chairman of the National Transitional Council from 5 March 2011 until its dissolution on 8 August 2012. Before the war, Abdul Jalil served as Minister of Justice under Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and he was noted in some news media for his stance against various human rights violations in Libya, although Diana West accused him of intransigence during the Bulgarian nurses affair. Abdul Jalil was a known for ruling consistently against the regime. In January 2010 he attempted to resign on national television over the failure to release political prisoners. He resigned on 21 February 2011 after being sent to Benghazi to negotiate the release of hostages taken by rebels, in classified US diplomatic cables leaked by the website Wikileaks, he is described as open and cooperative. Following his resignation from Gaddafis government in protest at its actions during the Libyan Civil War, he’s publicly criticized the security agencies for continuing to detain prisoners, despite the fact that they have been acquitted by the courts. And, the problem really is that the Internal Security Agency, in a paper published in November 2010, Amnesty International stated similarly, that, At least 200 others remain detained after serving their sentences or being acquitted by courts. Justice Minister Mostafa Abdeljalil has publicly called for the release of prisoners, but the Internal Security Agency. Justice Minister Abdeljalil has said that he is unable to order an investigation into abuses by Internal Security Agency Officers because they have immunity, only the Interior Ministry can waive immunity, but it has consistently refused to do so, he said. Human Rights Watch made the observations in its submission to the 2010 Universal Periodic Review of the United Nations Human Rights Council. LExpress noted that before being named a minister of justice of Libya in 2007, the paper opined that Abdul Jalil was responsible for the intransigence of the court in confirming the death sentences in the Bulgarian nurses HIV trial under Gaddafi. During the Libyan Civil War he was dispatched by Gaddafis son to Benghazi to allegedly negotiate the release of hostages taken by Islamists, on 21 February, the privately owned Quryna newspaper reported that he had resigned over the excessive use of violence against anti-government protesters. On 22 February, he claimed in an interview with Swedish newspaper Expressen that he had proof Gaddafi had personally ordered the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, to date, he has not revealed this proof. On 9 March, Abdul Jalil called for the imposition of a no-fly zone over Libya, as the Battle of Tripoli tilted in favor of forces answering to the NTC, Abdul Jalil said on 24 August that democratic elections would be held in eight months. He also said that Gaddafi and his sons, once captured, on 24 February 2011, opposition politicians, former military officers, tribal leaders, academics and businessmen held a meeting in the eastern city of Bayda. The meeting was chaired by Abdul Jalil, who quit the government a few days before, the delegates stressed the importance of the national unity of Libya and stated that Tripoli is the capital city. They discussed proposals for interim administration with many asking for UN intervention in Libya. The podium at the meeting displayed the pre-Gaddafi era flag of the Kingdom of Libya, on 25 February 2011, Al Jazeera reported that talks are taking place between personalities from eastern and western Libya to form an interim government for the post-Gaddafi era

7.
Idris of Libya
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Idris, GBE, was a Libyan political and religious leader who served as the Emir of Cyrenaica and then as the King of Libya from 1951 to 1969. He was the chief of the Senussi Muslim order, Idris was born into the Senussi Order. When his cousin, Ahmed Sharif as-Senussi, abdicated as leader of the Order, Cyrenaica was facing invasion from the Italians. Idris then led his Order in an attempt to conquer the eastern part of the Tripolitanian Republic. Following the Second World War, the United Nations General Assembly called for Libya to be granted independence and it established the United Kingdom of Libya through the unification of Cyrenaica, Tripolitania, and Fazzan, appointing Idris to rule it as king. Wielding significant political influence in the country, he banned political parties. He established links to the Western powers, allowing the United Kingdom, after oil was discovered in Libya in 1959, he oversaw the emergence of a growing oil industry that rapidly aided economic growth. While in Turkey for medical treatment, Idris was deposed in a 1969 coup detat by army officers led by Muammar Gaddafi and he became chief of the Senussi order in 1916 following the abdication of his cousin Sayyid Ahmed Sharif es Senussi. He was recognized by the British under the new emir of the territory of Cyrenaica. He was also installed as Emir of Tripolitania on 28 July 1922, Idris family claimed descent from the Prophet Muhammad through his daughter, Fatimah. The Senusi were a revivalist Sunni Islamic sect who were based largely in Cyrenaica, by the end of the nineteenth century the Senusi Order had established a form of government in Cyrenaica, unifying its tribes, controlling its pilgrimage and trade routes, and collecting taxes. After the Italian army invaded Cyrenaica in 1913 as part of their invasion of Libya. When the Orders leader, Ahmed Sharif as-Senussi, abdicated his position, he was replaced by Idris, pressured to do so by the Ottoman Empire, Admed had pursued armed attacks against British military forces stationed in neighbouring Egypt. On taking power, Idris put a stop to these attacks, instead he established a tacit alliance with the British, which would last for half a century and accord his Order de facto diplomatic status. Using the British as intermediaries, Idris led the Order into negotiations with the Italians in July 1916 and these resulted in two agreements, Al-Zuwaytina in April 1916 and Akrama in April 1917. The latter of these treaties left most of inland Cyrenaica under the control of the Senussi Order, relations between the Senussi Order and the newly established Tripolitanian Republic were acrimonious. The Senusi attempted to extend their power into eastern Tripolitania. At the end of World War I, the Ottoman Empire signed an agreement in which they ceded their claims over Libya to Italy

8.
Chairperson of the African Union
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The Chairman of the African Union is the ceremonial head of the African Union elected by the Assembly of Heads of State for a one-year term. It rotates among the five regions. In 2002, South African President Thabo Mbeki served as the chairman of the union. The post rotates annually amongst the five regions of Africa. In January 2007, the assembly elected Ghanaian President John Kufuor over Sudans President Omar al-Bashir due to the ongoing Conflict in Darfur, the government of Chad threatened to withdraw its membership if Sudan assumed the chair. Some had suggested Tanzania as a candidate from the East African region. By consensus, Ghana was elected instead as it was celebrating its 50th independence anniversary that year, libya was at the time one of the largest financial supporters of the AU. The election of Equatoguinean President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo in January 2011 was criticized by rights activists as it undermined the AUs commitment to democracy. The incumbent is the head of the AU and in this capacity, chairs the biannual summits and represents the continent in various international fora such as TICAD, FOCAC, G8. The Chairperson is assisted by a bureau of three vice-chairpersons and a rapporteur

9.
Jakaya Kikwete
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Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete was the fourth President of Tanzania, in office from 2005 to 2015. Prior to his election as President, he was the Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1995 to 2005 under his predecessor, Benjamin Mkapa. He has also served as the Chairperson of the African Union in 2008–2009, between 1959 and 1963, Kikwete went to Karatu Primary School in Tanzania before continuing with middle school education at Tengeru School from 1962 to 1965. He graduated from the University of Dar es Salaam in 1975 with a degree in Agrieconomics, Kikwete was born at Msoga, located in the Bagamoyo District of Tanganyika, in 1950. As a party cadre, Kikwete moved from one position to another in the party ranks, in 1988, he was appointed to join the central government. In 1994, at 44, he one of the youngest finance ministers in the history of Tanzania. In December 1995, he became Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and he held this post for ten years, until he was elected President of the United Republic of Tanzania in December 2005, hence becoming the countrys longest serving foreign minister. Kikwete was also involved in the process of rebuilding regional integration in East Africa. Kikwete also participated in the initiation, and became a Co-Chair, of the Helsinki Process on Globalisation, on 4 May 2005, Kikwete emerged victorious among 11 CCM members who had sought the partys nomination for Presidential candidacy in the general election. In response, Museveni expressed his willingness to negotiate, on 31st January 2016, The Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Dr Nkosazana Zuma, appointed Jakaya Kikwete the African Union High Representative in Libya. Following the crisis in Libya, Kikwetes role is to lead the AUs efforts on achieving peace, later that year, he was appointed by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to serve as member of the Lead Group of the Scaling Up Nutrition Movement. Kikwete is a sports enthusiast and played basketball competitively in school. He has been a patron of the Tanzania Basketball Federation for the past 10 years and he is married to Salma and they have five children. As of 4 April 2013, Kikwete was the sixth most followed African leader on Twitter with 57,626 followers, sullivan Honor 2007, The AAI African National Achievement Award. 2009, US Doctors for Africa Award,2015, African Achievers Award by the Institute for Good Governance in Africa. 2015, African Statesman of the Year by the The African Sun Times, Kikwete Bridge, across the Malagarasi River in western Tanzania Jakaya M Kikwete Youth Park, a multi-sport facility in Dar es Salaam. Jakaya Kikwete Cardiac Institute, at the Muhimbili National Hospital, Kikwete Friendship Highway, a 12 km highway in Dar es Salaam that will be constructed between Ukonga Banana in Ilala District and Chamazi in Temeke District. Trenton, NJ, Africa World Press, Inc

10.
Bingu wa Mutharika
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Bingu wa Mutharika was a Malawian politician and economist who was President of Malawi from May 2004 until his death. He was also President of the Democratic Progressive Party, which he founded in February 2005, during his two terms in office he was noted for being the Chairperson of the African Union in 2010–2011, as well as for several domestic controversies. In 2009 he purchased a private jet for $13.26 million. Bingu wa Mutharika was born Brightson Webster Ryson Thom on 24 February 1934 in Thyolo, Mutharikas parents, Ryson Thom Mutharika and Eleni Thom Mutharika, were both members of the Church of Scotland Mission which later became Church of Central Africa, Presbyterian. His father was a teacher for 37 years and his mother taught the women of the Mvano group, in 1964, he was one of the 32 Malawians selected by Hastings Kamuzu Banda to travel to India on an Indira Gandhi scholarship for fast track diplomas. The BBC reports that he went to India to escape then President Hastings Bandas crackdown on political opponents, at some point during the 1960s, he also changed his name, to Bingu wa Mutharika. In India, Mutharika earned his bachelors degree in Economics from the Shri Ram College of Commerce, subsequently, he attended the Delhi School of Economics graduating with a M. A. degree in Economics. He later obtained a PhD degree in Development Economics from Pacific Western University, Mutharika also completed short courses on Business Management, Financial Analysis, Trade Promotion, Political Leadership, regional Economic Co-operation and Human Relations. Mutharika served in the Malawi civil service and he served as an administrative officer in the Government of Malawi and also in Zambia. He was offered the Deputy Governorship of the reserve Bank of Malawi and appointed Minister of Economic Planning and he stood as a presidential candidate for the United Party in the 1999 presidential election, finishing last. Mutharika was nominated by President Muluzi as his successor, Mutharika won the presidential election on 20 May 2004, ahead of John Tembo and Gwanda Chakuamba, and took office a few days later. On 7 October 2006, Mutharika stated his intention to seek re-election in the 2009 presidential election as the DPP candidate. Two years later, in October 2008, the DPPs national governing council unanimously chose Mutharika as the candidate for the 2009 election. During President Mutharikas first term in office, the country achieved a rate of agricultural production. The Presidents initiatives, centred on a programme of agricultural subsidy, in the 2005/2006 crop season, Malawi achieved a food surplus of more than 500,000 metric tons. During the 2008/2009 planting season, food surpluses topped 1.3 million metric tons and this agricultural policy was widely regarded as successful but expensive, and was curtailed in 2011. Under his tenure, the constitutionally enshrined human rights and separation of powers were enhanced and his first term was seen as a broad political success. He has also credited with committing to and presiding over economic reform, fiscal restraint

11.
Italian Libya
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The Adriatic Seas opposite western Balkans shore, with Dalmatia, Montenegro, and Albania, was planned for Italian expansion as the Third Shore, with Libya on the Mediterranean becoming the fourth. Thus the Fourth Shore was the part of Greater Italy. After the Italian Empire conquest of Ottoman Libya in the 1911–1912 Italo-Turkish War and this group, first under the leadership of Omar Al Mukhtar and centered in the Jebel Akhdar Mountains of Cyrenaica, lead the Libyan resistance movement against Italian settlement in Libya. Resistance leaders were executed or escaped into exile, the forced migration of more than 100,000 Cyrenaican people ended in Italian concentration camps. Afterwards Libya was predominantly Italianized, and many Italian colonists moved there to populate Italian North Africa, the Italians in Libya numbered 108,419 at the time of the 1939 census. They were concentrated on the Mediterranean coast around the city of Tripoli, Libya was made an integral part of Italy in 1939 and the local population were granted a form of Italian citizenship. Tunisia was conquered by Italy in November 1942 and was added to the 4th Shore – Quarta Sponda – because of the community of Tunisian Italians living there. Italian colony During less than thirty years in Libya the Kingdom of Italy developed the cities and they built huge public works, such as new town districts with streets and buildings, modern ports, the Italian Libya Railways, and long highways. The Libyan economy and trade flourished very much, similar to what happened during the ancient Roman empire colony era, Italian farmers cultivated lands that had returned to being native desert for many centuries. Even archeology flourished, with ancient city of Leptis Magna rediscovered and used as a symbol of the Italian right to recolonize the region, Libya was considered the new America for Italian emigrants of the 1930s. Indeed in 1938 the governor, Italo Balbo, brought 20,000 Italian farmers to colonize Italian Libya, the 22,000 Libyan Jews were allowed to integrate without problems in the society of the 4th Shore. However after the summer of 1941, with the arrival of the German Nazi Afrika Korps, all these new villages each had a mosque, a school, a social center with sports facilities and a cinema, and a small hospital. Italian state On January 9,1939, the colony of Italian Libya was incorporated into metropolitan Italy, the French, in 1848, had incorporated French Algeria in this manner. By 1939 the Italians had built 400 kilometres of new railroads and 4,000 kilometres of new roads, the most important and largest highway project was the Via Balbo, an east-west coastal route connecting Tripoli in western Italian Tripolitania to Tobruk in eastern Italian Cyrenaica. Most of these projects and achievements were completed between 1934 and 1940 when Italo Balbo was governor of Italian Libya, as it became the Fourth Shore, fezzan, designated as South Tripolitania, remained a military territory. A governor general, called the first consul after 1937, was in direction of the colony, assisted by the General Consultative Council. Traditional tribal councils, formerly sanctioned by the Italian administration, were abolished, administrative posts at all levels were held by Italians. An accord with Britain and Egypt obtained the transfer of a corner of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, known as the Sarra Triangle, in 1939 Libya was incorporated into metropolitan Italy

12.
Sirte
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Sirte, also spelled Sirt, Surt, Sert or Syrte, is a city in Libya. It is on the south coast of the Gulf of Sidra, Sirte lies halfway between Tripoli and Benghazi. The settlement was established in the early 20th century by the Italians and it grew into a city after World War II. As the birthplace of Muammar Gaddafi, Sirte was favoured by the Gaddafi government, the city was the final major stronghold of Gaddafi loyalists in the Libyan Civil War and Gaddafi was killed there by rebel forces on 20 October 2011. During the battle, Sirte was left almost completely in ruins, six months after the civil war, almost 60,000 inhabitants, more than 70 percent of pre-war population, had returned. Sirte is built near the site of the ancient Phoenician city of Macomedes-Euphranta and it is the last confirmed place where the Punic language was spoken, in the 5th century CE. The region had no recognized administrative centre and was infested for centuries by bandits, in Classical times, the coast was proverbially dangerous to shipping, called inhospita Syrtis in Virgils Aeneid. John Miltons Paradise Lost Book 2 lines 939-940 speaks of a boggy Syrtis, in 1842 the Ottomans built a fortress at Marsat al Zaafran which became known as Qasr al Zaafran, and later as Qasr Sert. The fortress was built under sultan Abdülmecid I as part of the restoration of Ottoman control over Tripolitania after the fall of the Karamanli dynasty and it was around this fortification, which was taken over and repaired by the Italians in 1912, that the settlement of Sirte grew up. Sirte served as an administrative centre under Italian rule and he was sent to the primary school at Sirte at the age of ten. After 1988, most government departments and the Libyan parliament were relocated from Tripoli to Sirte, al-Tahadi University was established in 1991. In 1999, Gaddafi proposed the idea of creating a United States of Africa with Sirte as its administrative centre, ambitious plans to build a new international airport and seaport were announced in 2007. In 1999, the Sirte Declaration was signed in the city by the Organisation of African Unity in a conference that was hosted by Gaddafi, in 2007 he also hosted talks in Sirte to broker a peace agreement between the government of Sudan and warring factions in Darfur. On 5 March 2011, anti-Gaddafi forces said they were preparing to capture the city, however, on 6 March, the rebel advance was stopped during the Battle of Bin Jawad before reaching Sirte. Government forces launched a counter-offensive that recaptured Ras Lanuf and continued to advance as far as the outskirts of the de facto capital of Benghazi. Under United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973, several Western and Arab countries then intervened with air and missile strikes, by 30 March, Gaddafi loyalists had forced the rebels out of Bin Jawad and Ras Lanuf and once again removed the immediate threat of an attack on Sirte. In August, the city faced a severe threat from the rebels as the loyalist position deteriorated rapidly. As Tripoli came under attack, other rebel forces based in Benghazi broke the stalemate in the eastern desert, taking Brega

13.
Libya
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The three traditional parts of the country are Tripolitania, Fezzan and Cyrenaica. With an area of almost 1.8 million square kilometres, Libya is the fourth largest country in Africa, Libya has the 10th-largest proven oil reserves of any country in the world. The largest city and capital, Tripoli, is located in western Libya, the other large city is Benghazi, which is located in eastern Libya. Libya has been inhabited by Berbers since the late Bronze Age, the Phoenicians established trading posts in western Libya, and ancient Greek colonists established city-states in eastern Libya. Libya was variously ruled by Carthaginians, Persians, Egyptians and Greeks before becoming a part of the Roman Empire, Libya was an early center of Christianity. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the area of Libya was mostly occupied by the Vandals until the 7th century, in the 16th century, the Spanish Empire and the Knights of St John occupied Tripoli, until Ottoman rule began in 1551. Libya was involved in the Barbary Wars of the 18th and 19th centuries, Ottoman rule continued until the Italian occupation of Libya resulted in the temporary Italian Libya colony from 1911 to 1943. During the Second World War Libya was an important area of warfare in the North African Campaign, the Italian population then went into decline. Libya became an independent kingdom in 1951, a military coup in 1969 overthrew King Idris I, beginning a period of sweeping social reform. Since then, Libya has experienced a period of instability, the European Union is involved in an operation to disrupt human trafficking networks exploiting refugees fleeing from wars in Africa for Europe. At least two political bodies claim to be the government of Libya, the Council of Deputies is internationally recognized as the legitimate government, but it does not hold territory in the capital, Tripoli, instead meeting in the Cyrenaica city of Tobruk. Parts of Libya are outside of either governments control, with various Islamist, rebel, the United Nations is sponsoring peace talks between the Tobruk and Tripoli-based factions. An agreement to form an interim government was signed on 17 December 2015. Under the terms of the agreement, a nine-member Presidency Council, the leaders of the new government, called the Government of National Accord, arrived in Tripoli on 5 April 2016. Since then the GNC, one of the two governments, has disbanded to support the new GNA. The name Libya was introduced in 1934 for Italian Libya, reviving the name for Northwest Africa. The name was based on use in 1903 by Italian geographer Federico Minutilli. It was intended to supplant terms applied to Ottoman Tripolitania, the region of what is today Libya having been ruled by the Ottoman Empire from 1551 to 1911

14.
Safia Farkash
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Safia Farkash El Hadad is the widow of the former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, and mother of seven of his eight biological children. There are two different stories about her origin, one is that Farkash is from a family from the Eastern Libyan Barasa tribe and that she was born in Bayda and was trained as a nurse. The other story is that Farkash was born in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina as Zsófia Farkas and has a Bosnian Croat and she met Gaddafi when he was hospitalised and treated for appendicitis in 1970. She became his wife when they married in Tripoli during the same year. Farkash has seven children with Gaddafi and two adopted children, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, her eldest son, was an architect who was long-rumored to be Gaddafis successor. He has been a spokesman to the Western world, and he has negotiated treaties with Italy and he was viewed as politically moderate, and in 2006, after criticizing his fathers government, he briefly left Libya. In 2007, Gaddafi exchanged angry letters with his son regarding his sons statements admitting the Bulgarian nurses had been tortured, al-Saadi Gaddafi, was a professional football player. On 22 August 2011, he was arrested by the National Liberation Army. This turned out to be incorrect, in the late evening of 22 August 2011, he spoke with members of the international press. Mutassim Gaddafi, Gaddafis fourth son, was a lieutenant colonel in the Libyan Army and he later served as Libyas National Security Advisor. He was seen as a successor to his father, after Saif al-Islam. Mutassim was killed along with his father after the battle of Sirte, Hannibal Muammar Gaddafi, was an employee of the General National Maritime Transport Company, a company that specialized in oil exports. He is most-known for his violent incidents in Europe, attacking police officers in Italy, drunk driving, in 2008, he was charged with assaulting two staff in Switzerland, and was imprisoned by Swiss police. The arrest created a standoff between Libya and Switzerland. Ayesha Gaddafi, Farkashs only biological daughter, is a lawyer who joined the teams of executed former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. In 2006, she married a cousin of her fathers, Ahmed al-Gaddafi al-Qahsi, Saif al-Arab Gaddafi was appointed a military commander in the Libyan Army during the Libyan Civil War. Saif al-Arab and three of Farkashs grandchildren were reported killed by a NATO bombing in April 2011, like the death of Hanna, this is disputed by the organizations alleged to be responsible. Khamis Gaddafi, her son, who was serving as the commander of the Libyan Armys elite Khamis Brigade

15.
Muhammad Gaddafi
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Muhammad Muammar Gaddafi is the eldest son of the former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. While he was regarded as a successor as ruler of Libya from his father. He was also the chairman of the General Posts and Telecommunications Company which owned and operated cell phone, on 21 August 2011, Muhammad surrendered to rebel forces of the National Transitional Council as they took over Tripoli. While being in custody in his home he gave an interview to Al Jazeera. The National Transitional Council head later spoke to Al Jazeera assuring Muhammads safety, Muhammad spoke to Al Jazeera again confirming his safety and that of his family. On 22 August 2011, he escaped reportedly with the help of Gaddafi loyalists, on 29 August 2011, he entered Algeria along with several other members of the Gaddafi family. In October 2012 they left a hideaway in Algeria to go to Oman, where they were granted political asylum

16.
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi
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Saif al-Islam Gaddafi is a former Libyan political figure. He is the son of late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. Gaddafi was awarded a PhD from London School of Economics and he was a part of his fathers inner circle, performing public relations and diplomatic roles on behalf of his father. He publicly turned down his fathers offer of the second highest post. An arrest warrant was issued for him by the International Criminal Court for charges of crimes against humanity against the Libyan people, for torturing and killing civilians, a charge he denied. Gaddafi was captured by the Zintan militia on 19 November 2011, after the end of the Libyan Civil War, in southern Libya and flown by plane to Zintan. He was sentenced to death on 28 July 2015 by a court in Tripoli for crimes during the 2011 Libyan Civil War and he remained in the custody of the de facto independent authorities of Zintan. In July 2016 it was reported that he had been released, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi graduated with a bachelor of science degree in engineering science from Tripolis Al Fateh University in 1994. However, there is another report stating that he is an architect and he earned an MBA from Viennas IMADEC business school in 2000. Gaddafi was awarded a PhD degree in 2008 from the London School of Economics and he presented a thesis on The role of civil society in the democratisation of global governance institutions, from soft power to collective decision-making. Examined by Meghnad Desai and Anthony McGrew, among the LSE academics acknowledged in the thesis as directly assisting with it were Nancy Cartwright, David Held, professor Joseph Nye of Harvard University is also thanked for having read portions of the manuscript and providing advice and direction. Furthermore, allegations abound that Saifs thesis was in many parts ghost-written by consultants from Monitor Group, speaking in Sabha on 20 August 2008, Gaddafi said that he would no longer involve himself in state affairs. He noted that he had previously intervene due to the absence of institutions and he dismissed any potential suggestion that this decision was due to disagreement with his father, saying that they were on good terms. He also called for reforms within the context of the Jamahiriya system and rejected the notion that he could succeed his father. Gaddafi was the president of the Libyan National Association for Drugs, in 2009, both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch were allowed entry to Libya, via Gaddafis non-profit organization in order to gather facts about the human rights situation in Libya. Gaddafi was instrumental in negotiations that led to Libyas abandoning a weapons of mass destruction programme in 2002–2003 and he arranged several important business deals on behalf of the Libyan regime in the period of rapprochement that followed. He was viewed as a reformer, and openly criticised the regime and you mean Libya needs more democracy. More democracy’ would imply that we had some, Gaddafi said, in 2003, he published a report critical of Libyas record on human rights. S. -led sanctions against Libya after the Lockerbie bombing, and for denying him a student visa to study in Canada in 1997

17.
Al-Saadi Gaddafi
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Al-Saadi Muammar Gaddafi, is the third son of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. He is a Libyan former association football player, in 2011, he was the commander of Libyas Special Forces and was involved in the Libyan Civil War. An Interpol notice has been issued against him, on 5 March 2014, he was arrested in Niger and extradited to Libya, where he faces murder charges. In August 2015, video surfaced allegedly showing Gaddafi being tortured, Gaddafi is known for his involvement in Libyan football. On 6 June 2000, the BBC reported that Gaddafi had signed with Maltese champions Birkirkara F. C. Libyan football was arranged to favor Gaddafi. One law forbade announcing the name of any player with the exception of Gaddafi. Only numbers of players were announced. Referees favored Gaddafis club and security forces were used to silence protests and he signed for Italian Serie A team Perugia in 2003, employing Diego Maradona as his technical consultant and Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson as his personal trainer. He made only one appearance before failing a drug test. An article in la Repubblica said that Even at twice his current speed he would still be twice as slow as slow itself and he was also captain of the Libya national football team, captain of his home club in Tripoli, and president of the Libyan Football Federation. Gaddafi joined UEFA Champions League qualifiers Udinese Calcio in 2005–06, playing only 10 minutes in a league match against Cagliari Calcio. Sampdoria during season 2006–07, without playing a single match, in 2006, Al-Saadi Gaddafi and the Jamahiriya government launched a project to create a semi-autonomous city similar to Hong Kong in Libya, stretching 40 km between Tripoli and the Tunisian border. The proposed new city would become a high tech, banking, the city would have its own international airport and a major seaport. Gaddafi promised religious tolerance with both synagogues and churches and no discrimination in this new metropolis, the new city would have Western-style business laws that Saadi thought European and American companies would find welcoming and familiar. In July 2010, Gaddafi was ordered by an Italian court to pay €392,000 to a luxurious Ligurian hotel for an unpaid bill dating back to a stay in the summer of 2007. Gaddafi is married to the daughter of al-Khweildi al-Hmeidi, a Libyan military commander, in 2009, a U. S. diplomatic cable called Gaddafi the black sheep of Muammar Gaddafis family. It mentioned scuffles with European police, abuse of drugs and alcohol, excessive partying, Gaddafis bisexuality had partly prompted the arrangement of his marriage to the commanders daughter, the cable said. Gaddafi confirmed that he had been at the barracks but denied giving orders to fire on protesters, Gaddafi was reportedly the driving force behind a change in fighting tactics of the governments forces

18.
Mutassim Gaddafi
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Al-Mutassim-Billah Muammar al-Gaddafi was a Libyan Army officer, and the National Security Advisor of Libya from 2008 until 2011. He was the son of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. He was captured during the Battle of Sirte by NATO funded anti-Gaddafi forces, for Gaddafi, it was a serious display of his new responsibilities as the National Security Advisor. He overreached his role as NSA in 2008 by requesting $1.2 billion from the National Oil Corporation to form his own special forces brigade, senators John McCain and Joseph Lieberman in 2009, expressing a strong need for military support in Libya. Gaddafi warned, There are 60 million Algerians to the West,80 million Egyptians to the East, we have Europe in front of us, and we face Sub-Saharan Africa with its problems to the South. He was concerned about upgrading Libyas military equipment, and said he could purchase arms from Russia and China, Mutassim Gaddafi lived in Egypt for several years after allegedly attempting to take control of Libya from his father. His return led to a reconciliation with his father and a position as National Security Advisor of Libya. In 2009, a story linking Mutassim Gaddafi to the death of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi was published in Libyan newspaper Oea with permission from his brother Saif al-Islam. During the Libyan Civil War, Gaddafi commanded the units in the Brega region notably during the Battle of Brega–Ajdabiya road and he had been subject to a travel ban and an asset freeze over his close links and membership of his fathers inner circle. Gaddafi was allegedly in Tripoli in the Bab al-Azizia compound, and he commanded the loyalist forces in their unsuccessful defense of Sirte, Muammar Gaddafis hometown, until the city fell. He was the son of Muammar Gaddafi by his second wife. According to his ex-girlfriend, Talitha van Zon, Mutassim Gaddafi paid for Beyoncé, model Vanessa Hessler also admitted to a four-year relationship with him, and she continued to defend him after his death. Mutassim Gaddafi was captured when Sirte fell on 20 October 2011, NTC commanders at the front in Sirte and officials in Tripoli claimed that he was captured as he was trying to leave the city in a family car, and sent off to Benghazi. He was made to water and requested a cigarette. Later photographs released by Saudi TV channel Al Arabiya show Mutassim Gaddafi lying dead on a bed, with gaping wounds in his throat and abdomen. Amateur photographs and videos showed his captors and others defiling his corpse after his death. Like his father, he was denied the dignity of an Islamic burial within a day after death, in contravention of the law

19.
Hannibal Muammar Gaddafi
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Hannibal Muammar Gaddafi is the fifth son of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and his second wife, Safia Farkash. Gaddafi was born in Tripoli, the Libyan Arab Republic and he started his maritime career by joining the Marine Academy of Maritime Studies/Libya in 1993 as a Deck Cadet. He graduated in 1999, as a watch keeping officer with a BSc degree in marine navigation, Gaddafi was the first consultant to the Management Committee of the General National Maritime Transport Company of Libya. He was appointed to position in 2007, upon earning his MBA degree in Shipping Economics and Logistics from Copenhagen Business School. Gaddafi is married to Aline Skaf, a Lebanese Christian former lingerie model, the charges were later dropped, but relations between Libya and Switzerland soured. In 2009, two Swiss citizens, Max Goeldi and Rachid Hamdani, were detained in Libya, the Swiss government asserted that the detention was done as retaliation against them for Gaddafis arrest. Also in 2008, Gaddafi lost a lawsuit he brought in Denmark against the Danish newspaper, the newspaper reported that in 2005, Gaddafi, then a student in Copenhagen, had directed the abduction and beating of a Libyan national at the home of the Libyan consul in Gentofte. Gaddafi failed to appear in court to present his side of the case, in 2009, police were called to Claridges Hotel in London in response to reports of a woman screaming. When they arrived, the suite was locked and three bodyguards were arrested for obstructing entry, Gaddafis wife, Aline Skaf, was found in the room bleeding heavily and was taken by ambulance to hospital where she was treated for facial injuries. On 29 August after the rebels entered Tripoli, Gaddafi and his wife fled from Libya to Algeria together with members of the Gaddafi family. In October 2012 they left a hideaway in Algeria to go to Oman, shweyga Mullah, an Ethiopian nanny who cared for the couples young daughter and son was found abandoned by the rebels in a room at one of the familys luxury seaside villas in western Tripoli. Then Mullah was denied sleep, food and water for three days, another member of staff, who did not want to give his name, verified Ms Mullahs story and said that he also had been regularly beaten and slashed with knives. An arrest warrant was issued against him by the Lebanese government over the disappearance of al-Sadr, in August 2016, al-Sadrs family filed a lawsuit against Gaddafi over his role in the disappearance of the Imam

20.
Saif al-Arab Gaddafi
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Saif al-Arab Gaddafi was the sixth son of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. From around 2006 to 2010, Saif al-Arab spent much of his time in Munich, on 30 April 2011, the Libyan government reported that Saif al-Arab and three of his young nieces and nephews were killed by a NATO airstrike on his house during the Libyan Civil War. During the beginning of the uprising, Saif al-Arab was put in charge of forces by his father in order to put down protesters in Benghazi. Saif al-Arab was viewed as the most low-profile of Gaddafis eight children, Saif al-Arab was born in 1982 in the Libyan capital of Tripoli. His father was Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, and his mother was Safia Farkash, Saif al-Arab was wounded in the U. S. bombing attack of 1986 when he was four years old. In 2006, Saif al-Arab came to Munich with an Italian tourist visa for a proposed study. In November that year, Saif al-Arab became involved in a fight with a bouncer, after his girlfriend was thrown out of Munich’s 4004 nightclub for performing a strip show for Saif al-Arab. In the resulting scuffle Saif al-Arab received a cut to his head, although Saif al-Arab was charged, the Munich public prosecutor dropped charges on the basis that a prosecution would not be in the public interest. By March 2007, Saif al-Arabs location was not known and it was thought that he was not in Germany, in 2008, Saif al-Arab again stayed in Munich. Excessive noise from the exhaust of his Ferrari F430 led to questions from the German police, also that year Saif al-Arab was suspected of attempting to smuggle an assault rifle, a revolver and munitions from Munich to Paris in a car with diplomatic number plates. However, the case was dropped as the alleged weapons were never found. In addition to his studies, Al Jazeera reported Saif al-Arab engaged in unspecified business activities, notwithstanding these media reports, Saif al-Arab was viewed as the most low-profile of Gaddafis sons. In February 2011, following the outbreak of the Libyan Civil War, subsequently, the Bavarian Interior Ministry stated that he had been declared persona non grata. An Interpol notice was issued against him. On 30 April 2011, a Libyan government spokesman, Moussa Ibrahim, announced an air strike on Saif al-Arabs house had killed Saif al-Arab, Moussa Ibrahim refused to release the names of the grandchildren killed for privacy reasons. The government also claimed Muammar Gaddafi was present in the house during the attack, the next day Libyan state TV showed footage of two bodies in a hospital fully covered and veiled, and thus unidentifiable, but claimed that one of them was Saif al-Arab Gaddafis corpse. NATO said it struck a command and control center, not a residential structure, the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office says it is unable to verify if Saif al-Arab or his relatives were killed. Members of the opposition centred in Benghazi have speculated that the Libyan governments claim of Saif al-Arabs death was a tactic to gain sympathy

21.
Khamis Gaddafi
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Khamis Gaddafi was the seventh and youngest son of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, and the military commander in charge of the Khamis Brigade of the Libyan Army. He was part of his fathers inner circle, during the Libyan Civil War in 2011, he was a major target for opposition forces trying to overthrow his father. In 2008, Gaddafi visited Algeria, where he was received by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, in April 2010, he began a masters degree at the IE Business School, in Madrid. However, he was expelled by the institution in March 2011 for his links to the attacks against the Libyan population, in early 2011, Gaddafi worked as an intern at AECOM Technology Corporation. This trip was cut short on 17 February after the Libyan Civil War began, U. S. government officials later denied any role in planning, advising or paying for the trip. The battle resulted in pro-Gaddafi forces retaking the city and he also assisted in suppressing anti-regime demonstrations in and around the capital Tripoli in late February-early March. His forces also took part in the Battle of Misrata, if you don’t take Misrata, we are finished. This was not confirmed by any independent news source, the pro-Gaddafi Libyan government subsequently denied that he was killed on 21 March. On 25 March 2011, Al Arabiya television reported that a source had confirmed the death of Khamis Gaddafi, on 9 June 2011, a captured pro-Gaddafi soldier in Misrata told the rebels that Khamis Gaddafi was alive in Zliten, and was leading the soldiers there. This report was denied by Libyan government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim. They invented the news about Mr. Khamis Gaddafi in Zliten to cover up their killing and this is a dirty trick to cover up their crime in Zliten and the killing of the al-Marabit family. NATO was also unable to confirm the reports of Khamiss death, on 9 August, a man who appeared to be Khamis Gaddafi was on Libyan state television speaking to a woman who had allegedly been severely injured by a NATO airstrike. On 22 August, Al Jazeera reported that the bodies of both Khamis Gaddafi and his fathers intelligence chief Abdullah Senussi may have discovered in Tripoli during the battle for the city. However, a rebel commander stated that he believed Khamis Gaddafi was in Bab al-Azizia. Senussi was found alive and captured in Mauritania on 17 March 2012, on 29 August, it was reported that anti-Gaddafi fighters 60 km south of Tripoli claimed that a NATO Apache helicopter had fired on Khamis Gaddafis Toyota Land Cruiser, destroying the vehicle. A man who claimed to be Khamis Gaddafis bodyguard said he had been killed, no visual confirmation was immediately available. Several days later, The Guardian interviewed a former guard being held captive in Tarhuna and his personal guard, Abdul Salam Taher Fagri, a 17-year-old from Sabha, recruited in Tripoli, later confirmed that Khamis Gaddafi was indeed killed in this attack. He told the newspaper I was in the truck behind him, three other guards being held in separate cells apparently gave similar accounts, leading their captors to believe the accounts of all four to be credible

22.
Ayesha Gaddafi
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Ayesha Gaddafi, also known as Aicha Al-Kadhafi, is a former Libyan mediator and military official, former UN Goodwill Ambassador, and lawyer by profession. She is the child and only daughter of former Libyan Leader Muammar Gaddafi by his second wife Safia Farkash. She is currently under a ban and has been stripped of her titles working with the UN. She trained with the Libyan military, earning the rank of lieutenant colonel, in 2000 after sanctions were imposed on Iraq, she arrived in Baghdad with a delegation of 69 officials. Shortly before the invasion of Iraq in 2003, she met with Saddam Hussein, Ayesha has served as a mediator on behalf of the government with European Union corporations. In February 2011 the United Nations stripped Ayesha of her role as a goodwill ambassador, in July 2004 she joined the legal defense team of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. Gaddafi is also the head of the charity Wa Attassimou, which defended Muntadhar al-Zaidi when he faced charges stemming from the shoe-hurling incident and she was placed under a travel ban on 26 February 2011, under United Nations Security Council Resolution 1970. Gaddafi sued NATO over the bombing of a building in her fathers compound which she alleged killed her brother, Saif al-Arab Gaddafi and she claimed that the attack was illegal because it targeted civilian buildings. Gaddafis lawyers filed the petitions in Brussels and Paris in June 2011, as the Battle for Tripoli reached a climax in mid-August, the Gaddafi family were forced to abandon their fortified compound. On 22 August, Libyan rebels captured her house in the Battle of Tripoli, among her possessions was a golden sofa shaped like a mermaid with the face of Ayesha, designed by an Egyptian artist. On 29 August, the Algerian government officially announced that Safia Farkash together with Ayesha and her brothers Muhammad, mourad Benmehidi, the Algerian permanent representative to the United Nations, later confirmed the details of the statement. The family had arrived at a Sahara desert entry point, in a Mercedes, the exact number of people in the party was unconfirmed, but there were “many children” and they did not include Colonel Gaddafi. The group was allowed in on humanitarian grounds, because Ayesha was pregnant, the Algerian government had since informed the head of the National Transitional Council. Libyas rebels said sheltering Gaddafi family members was an act of aggression, on 30 August 2011 it was announced that Ayesha had given birth to a baby girl in the town of Djanet. They were reportedly being confined by the Algerian government to a villa in Staoueli near Algiers, in October 2012 she, along with two of her brothers and other family members left Algeria to go to Oman, where they were granted political asylum. Ayesha was dubbed in the Arab press as the Claudia Schiffer of North Africa, in 2006 she married Ahmed al-Gaddafi al-Qahsi, a cousin of her fathers and an army colonel. Her husband was killed in the 26 July bombing of Gaddafi’s compound and they had three children prior to the fall of the regime, one of whom was killed along with one of her brothers in a NATO airstrike. Algerian authorities confirmed that she gave birth to her fourth child, timeline of the Libyan civil war

23.
Alma mater
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Alma mater is an allegorical Latin phrase for a university or college. In modern usage, it is a school or university which an individual has attended, the phrase is variously translated as nourishing mother, nursing mother, or fostering mother, suggesting that a school provides intellectual nourishment to its students. Before its modern usage, Alma mater was a title in Latin for various mother goddesses, especially Ceres or Cybele. The source of its current use is the motto, Alma Mater Studiorum, of the oldest university in continuous operation in the Western world and it is related to the term alumnus, denoting a university graduate, which literally means a nursling or one who is nourished. The phrase can also denote a song or hymn associated with a school, although alma was a common epithet for Ceres, Cybele, Venus, and other mother goddesses, it was not frequently used in conjunction with mater in classical Latin. Alma Redemptoris Mater is a well-known 11th century antiphon devoted to Mary, the earliest documented English use of the term to refer to a university is in 1600, when University of Cambridge printer John Legate began using an emblem for the universitys press. In English etymological reference works, the first university-related usage is often cited in 1710, many historic European universities have adopted Alma Mater as part of the Latin translation of their official name. The University of Bologna Latin name, Alma Mater Studiorum, refers to its status as the oldest continuously operating university in the world. At least one, the Alma Mater Europaea in Salzburg, Austria, the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, has been called the Alma Mater of the Nation because of its ties to the founding of the United States. At Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, and the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, British Columbia, the ancient Roman world had many statues of the Alma Mater, some still extant. Modern sculptures are found in prominent locations on several American university campuses, outside the United States, there is an Alma Mater sculpture on the steps of the monumental entrance to the Universidad de La Habana, in Havana, Cuba. Media related to Alma mater at Wikimedia Commons The dictionary definition of alma mater at Wiktionary Alma Mater Europaea website

24.
University of Libya
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The University of Libya was a public university based in Tripoli and Benghazi, Libya. Despite its difficult economic situation at the time, in the 1950s the Libyan government decided to found a university. Towards that goal it sent a delegation to Egypt in 1955 to meet the then-prime minister Gamal Abdul Nasser, the Egyptian government agreed, and promised to pay the salaries of the four borrowed lecturers for four years. The U. S. nominated Professor Majid Khadduri to be the dean of faculty of Literature, a royal decree was issued on 15 December 1955 for the founding of the university. The next step was of course to extend the university and establish new faculties, Faculty of Science, on 6 October 1968, a celebration was held for the founding of a new campus in Garyounis district of Benghazi. The celebration was attended by King Idris I, Wanis al-Qaddafi, the Prime Minister, cyrene, a bulletin issued by U. of Libya because of founding the new campus at 6 Oct.1968. Garyounis University – Idarat Ash Shuun at Tullabiya, Nashra Ihsaiya bi Adad al Khirijeen munthu tasees al Jamea hatta amm 1982, media related to University of Libya at Wikimedia Commons

25.
Sunni Islam
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Sunni Islam is the largest group of Islam. Its name comes from the word Sunnah, referring to the behavior of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. According to Sunni tradition, Muhammad did not clearly designate a successor and this contrasts with the Shia view, which holds that Muhammad intended his son-in-law and cousin Ali ibn Abi Talib to succeed him. Political tensions between Sunnis and Shias continued with varying intensity throughout Islamic history and they have been exacerbated in recent times by ethnic conflicts, as of 2009, Sunni Muslims constituted between 87–90% of the worlds Muslim population. Sunni Islam is the worlds largest religious denomination, followed by Catholicism and its adherents are referred to in Arabic as ahl as-sunnah wa l-jamāʻah or ahl as-sunnah for short. In English, its doctrines and practices are sometimes called Sunnism, while adherents are known as Sunni Muslims, Sunnis, Sunnites, Sunni Islam is sometimes referred to as orthodox Islam. The Quran, together with hadith and binding juristic consensus form the basis of all traditional jurisprudence within Sunni Islam, sunnī, also commonly referred to as Sunnīism, is a term derived from sunnah meaning habit, usual practice, custom, tradition. The Muslim use of this term refers to the sayings and living habits of the prophet Muhammad, in Arabic, this branch of Islam is referred to as ahl as-sunnah wa l-jamāʻah, the people of the sunnah and the community, which is commonly shortened to ahl as-sunnah. One common mistake is to assume that Sunni Islam represents a normative Islam that emerged during the period after Muhammads death, and that Sufism and Shiism developed out of Sunni Islam. This perception is due to the reliance on highly ideological sources that have been accepted as reliable historical works. Both Sunnism and Shiaism are the end products of centuries of competition between ideologies. Both sects used each other to further cement their own identities and doctrines, the first four caliphs are known among Sunnis as the Rashidun or Rightly-Guided Ones. Sunni recognition includes the aforementioned Abu Bakr as the first, Umar who established the Islamic calendar as the second, Uthman as the third, Sunnis believe that the companions of Muhammad were the best of Muslims. Support for this view is found in the Quran, according to Sunnis. Sunnis also believe that the companions were true believers since it was the companions who were given the task of compiling the Quran, furthermore, narrations that were narrated by the companions are considered by Sunnis to be a second source of knowledge of the Muslim faith. A study conducted by the Pew Research Center in 2010 and released January 2011 found that there are 1.62 billion Muslims around the world, Islam does not have a formal hierarchy or clergy. Leaders are informal, and gain influence through study to become a scholar of Islamic law, according to the Islamic Center of Columbia, South Carolina, anyone with the intelligence and the will can become an Islamic scholar. During Midday Mosque services on Fridays, the congregation will choose a person to lead the service

26.
Kingdom of Libya
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Under the constitution of October 1951, the federal monarchy of Libya was headed by King Idris as chief of state, with succession to his designated heirs. Substantial political power resided with the king, the Senate, or upper house, consisted of eight representatives from each of the three provinces. Half of the senators were nominated by the king, who also had the right to veto legislation, local autonomy in the provinces was exercised through provincial governments and legislatures. Tripoli and Benghazi served alternately as the national capital, several factors, rooted in Libyas history, affected the political development of the newly independent country. They reflected the differing orientations of the provinces and the ambiguities inherent in Libyas monarchy. First, after the first Libyan general election,1952, which were held on 19 February, the National Congress Party, which had campaigned against a federal form of government, was defeated throughout the country. The party was outlawed, and Bashir es Sadawi was deported, second, provincial ties continued to be more important than national ones, and the federal and provincial governments were constantly in dispute over their respective spheres of authority. A third problem derived from the lack of a heir to the throne. To remedy this situation, Idris in 1953 designated his brother to succeed him. When the original heir apparent died, the king appointed his nephew, Prince Hasan ar Rida, in its foreign policy, the Kingdom of Libya was recognized as belonging to the conservative traditionalist bloc in the League of Arab States, of which it became a member in 1953. The government was in alliance with the United States and United Kingdom. The U. S. supported the United Nations resolution providing for Libyan independence in 1951, Libya opened a legation at Washington, D. C. in 1954. Both countries subsequently raised their missions to the level and exchanged ambassadors. In 1953, Libya concluded a treaty of friendship and alliance with the United Kingdom under which the latter received military bases in exchange for financial. The next year, Libya and the United States signed an agreement under which the United States also obtained military base rights, subject to renewal in 1970, in return for economic aid to Libya. The most important of the United States installations in Libya was Wheelus Air Base, near Tripoli, considered a strategically valuable installation in the 1950s, reservations set aside in the desert were used by British and American military aircraft based in Europe as practice firing ranges. Libya forged close ties with France, Italy, Greece, Turkey, and established full diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union in 1955, but declined a Soviet offer of economic aid. As part of a broad assistance package, the UN Technical Assistance Board agreed to sponsor a technical aid program that emphasized the development of agriculture, the University of Libya was founded in 1955 by royal decree in Benghazi

27.
History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi
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Muammar Gaddafi became the de facto leader of Libya on 1 September 1969 after leading a group of young Libyan military officers against King Idris I in a bloodless coup détat. After coming to power, the RCC government initiated a process of directing funds toward providing education, health care, despite the reforms not being entirely effective, public education in the country became free and primary education compulsory for both sexes. Medical care became available to the public at no cost but providing housing for all was a task the RCC government was not able to complete. Under Gaddafi, per capita income in the rose to more than US $11,000, the fifth highest in Africa. The increase in prosperity was accompanied by a foreign policy. Gaddafis government was known to be or suspected of participating in or aiding terrorist acts by these. Additionally, Gaddafi undertook several invasions of neighboring states in Africa, all of his actions led to a deterioration of Libyas foreign relations with several countries and culminated in the US bombing of Libya in 1986. Gaddafi defended his actions by citing the need to support anti-imperialist and anti-colonial movements around the world, notably, Gaddafi supported anti-Zionist, pan-Africanist, and black civil rights movements. Gaddafis behavior, often erratic, led outsiders to conclude that he was not mentally sound, in early 2011, a civil war broke out in the context of the wider Arab Spring. The anti-Gaddafi forces formed a committee named the National Transitional Council and it was meant to act as an interim authority in the rebel-controlled areas. At the same time, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant against Gaddafi, the fall of the last remaining cities under pro-Gaddafi control and Sirtes capture on 20 October 2011, followed by the subsequent killing of Gaddafi, marked the end of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. The name of Libya was changed several times during Gaddafis tenure as the leader, at first, the name was the Libyan Arab Republic. In 1977, the name was changed to Socialist Peoples Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Jamahiriya was a term coined by Gaddafi, usually translated as state of the masses. The country was renamed again in 1986 as the Great Socialist Peoples Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, the discovery of significant oil reserves in 1959 and the subsequent income from petroleum sales enabled the Kingdom of Libya to transition from one of the worlds poorest nations to a wealthy state. Although oil drastically improved the Libyan governments finances, resentment began to build over the concentration of the nations wealth in the hands of King Idris. This discontent mounted with the rise of Nasserism and Arab nationalism/socialism throughout North Africa, the coup was launched at Benghazi, and within two hours the takeover was completed. Army units quickly rallied in support of the coup, and within a few days firmly established control in Tripoli. Popular reception of the coup, especially by people in the urban areas, was enthusiastic

The 1969 Libyan coup d'état, also known as the al-Fateh Revolution or the 1 September Revolution, was a military coup …

Gaddafi at an Arab summit in Libya, shortly after the September Revolution that toppled King Idris. Gaddafi sits in military uniform in the middle, surrounded by President Gamal Abdel Nasser (left) and Syrian President Nureddin al-Atassi (right)